The  Republican  and  Democratic  Parties :  What  they  have  done,  and  what  th, 

propose  to  do. 


S  P  E  E  C  1 1 

OF 

HON.  HENRY  WILSON, 

AT  THE 

REPUBLICAN  MASS  MEETING  AT  BANGOR,  ME., 

AUG-UST  27,  1868. 


Published  by  the  Union  Republican  Congressional  Committee,  Washington,  D.  C, 


Fellow-Citizens  of  Maine  : 

Once  again  the  Constitution  imposes  upon 
the  citizens  of  the  United  States  the  election 
of  a  chief  magistrate.  This  high  duty  finds 
the  people  ranged  in  two  great  political  organ¬ 
izations.  Each  has  a  name,  a  history,  a  plat¬ 
form  of  principles,  a  programme  of  policies, 
and  a  candidate.  To  one  of  these  organiza¬ 
tions  the  people,  on  the  third  of  November, 
will  commit  the  precious  interests  of  the  nation. 

the  two  parties. 

I  propose  to  speak  of  the  Republican  party 
and  of  the  Democratic  party — what  each  has 
done,  what  each  proposes  to  do.  Holy  Writ 
teaches  us  that  the  tree  is  known  by  its  fruit — 
that  man  is  judged  by  his  deeds.  During  the 
past  fourteen  years  the  Republican  and  Demo¬ 
cratic  parties  have  striven  for  the  mastery. 
Their  policies  have  blossomed  into  fruits,  their 
principles  have  ripened  into  deeds.  By  their 
fruits  shall  they  be  known — by  their  deeds 
shall  they  be  judged.  By  the  exacting  stand¬ 
ards  of  patriotism  and  of  liberty  the  ages 
measure  public  men  and  political  organiza¬ 
tions.  Let  us  summon  these  two  parties  before 
us.  Let  us  apply  to  them  the  infallible  tests 
of  love  of  country  and  devotion  to  the  God- 
given  rights  of  man,  by  which  they  must 
stand  or  fall,  before  the  living  present  and  the 
ages  yet  to  be.  (Applause.) 

In  1852  the  Whig  and  Democratic  parties 
contended  for  the  last  time  for  mastery.  Then 
the  great  party,  that  had  sometimes  opposed  a 
hesitating  and  feeble  resistance  to  the  aggres¬ 
sive  demands  of  the  Slave  interest,  accepted 
the  humiliating  conditions  of  the  slave  mas¬ 
ters,  fought  its  last  battle,  received  a  crushing 
defeat,  staggered  on,  aimless  and  purposeless, 


for  a  few  months,  and  then  ingloriously  per¬ 
ished  ;  thus  fulfilling  the  prophetic  words  of 
the  dying  Webster,  that,  after  that  election, 
“  the  Whig  party  would  exist  only  in  history.” 

On  the  4th  of  March,  1853,  the  victorious 
Democracy  received,  from  the  nerveless  hand 
of  its  fallen  rival,  the  administration  of  the 
national  government.  In  full  possession  of  all 
its  departments  everywhere,  sustained  by  pop¬ 
ular  favor,  the  exultant  Democracy  ostenta¬ 
tiously  gloried  in  its  complete  subserviency  to 
that  all-exacting  power  which  had  dishonored, 
and  then  smitten  down,  its  great  rival.  Alike 
in  victory  or  defeat,  the  Democratic  party  had 
for  twenty  years  bowed  to  the  slave  propagan¬ 
dists.  At  their  bidding  it  had  cloven  down 
the  right  of  petition  and  the  freedom  of  speech, 
arraigned  the  illustrious  Adams  and  censured 
the  fearless  Giddings ;  annexed  Texas,  “  to 
give,”  in  the  words  of  Hamilton  of  Carolina, 
“  a  Gibraltar  to  the  South,”  and  “  to  add,”  in 
the  jubilant  language  of  Henry  A.  Wise, 
“  more  weight  to  her  end  of  the  beam  ;”  re¬ 
jected  the  Wilmot  Proviso,  and  given  the  slave 
masters  the  right  to  range,  with  their  fettered 
bondmen,  over  Utah  and  New-Mexico  ;  enacted 
the  fugitive  slave  code  of  inhumanities,  and 
sanctified  the  unholy  compromises  of  1850- ; 
pledged  itself  to  abide  by  that  legislation,  and 
to  resist  the  renewal  of  the  slavery  agitation. 
This  low  bending  of  the  knee  to  the  dark  spirit 
of  slavery  had  seemingly  won  for  the  chiefs  of 
the  Democracy  permanent  power  and  the  glit¬ 
tering  prizes  of  ambition. 

democratic  extension  of  slavery. 

When  Congress  met,  in  1853,  President 
Pierce  congratulated  the  nation  on  “  the  sense 
of  repose  and  security,”  and  gave  his  pledge 


JOHN  A.  CRAY  A  GREEN,  PRINTERS,  NEW-YORK. 


2 


■hat  this  “  repose  is  to  receive  no  shock  during 
liny  official  term.”  These  soothing  words, 
'however,  did  not  appease  the  lust  of  dominion 
and  the  greed  of  power.  Those  words  of  ex¬ 
ultation — that  pledge  of  unbroken  repose — 
had  hardly  made  the  tour  of  the  Republic,  ere 
the  nation  was  startled  by  the  faith-breaking 
demand  for  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Com¬ 
promise  of  1820.  Lusting  for  dominion,  the 
slave  propagandists  cast  their  hungry  eyes 
upon  the  magnificent  territory,  lying  in  the 
heart  of  the  continent,  into  which  slavery  was 
forever  forbidden  to  enter  —  a  domain  which 
free  labor,  secure  in  the  plighted  faith  of  the 
third  of  a  century,  held  as  its  rightful  in¬ 
heritance.  Demanding  that  this  vast  domain, 
covering  the  pathway  to  the  Pacific,  should  be 
opened  to  them,  they  bade  the  ever-obedient 
Democracy  remove  the  landmarks  of  freedom, 
however  it  might  “  shock”  the  “  sense  of  repose 
and  security.” 

But  this  faith-violating  demand  for  the  re¬ 
moval  of  the  landmarks  set  up  by  the  Congress 
of  1820  to  protect  a  region  larger  than  the 
French  empire  when  Napoleon  gazed  upon 
“  the  sea  of  flame,”  whose  billows  swept  over 
the  ancient  capital  of  the  Czars,  stirred  the 
nation  to  its  profoundest  depths.  After  a  fierce 
struggle  of  four  months,  the  faithless  propo¬ 
sition  received  the  approval  of  the  Democratic 
Congress,  the  Democratic  President,  and  the 
Democratic  party.  But  that  crowning  victory 
shattered  the  ranks  of  political  organizations. 
The  Whig  party  was  broken  utterly.  Hundreds 
of  thousands  left  the  disordered  ranks  of  the 
Democracy.  Nearly  a  million  and  a  half  of 
men  ranged  themselves  together  to  recover 
that  lost  territory — to  oppose  the  further  ex¬ 
tension  of  slavery  and  the  longer  domination 
of  slave  masters.  Seldom,  if  ever,  in  the  his¬ 
tory  of  nations,  has  man  been  inspired  by 
.higher  aims  than  then  fired  the  bosoms  of 
American  citizens  thus  brought  together  by  the 
needs  of  their  endangered  country. 

In  the  ranks  of  this  rising  party  gathered 
the  noblest  spirits  of  the  land  ;  the  Christian, 
upon  whose  vision  flashed  the  imperative  in¬ 
junction  of  Holy  Writ — break  every  yoke — 
undo  the  heavy  burden — let  the  oppressed  go 
free  ;  the  Scholar,  who  found,  in  the  pages  of 
the  mighty  dead  of  all  ages,  testimonies  that 
deepened  his  convictions  and  quickened  his 
zeal  for  the  equal  rights  of  struggling  human¬ 
ity  ;  the  Philanthropist,  who  saw.  as  he  gazed 
into  the  grave  of  perished  nations,  that  slavery 
poisoned  their  lives,  and  hastened  their  decline 
and  death.  Into  this  new  organization  came 
also  the  veteran  Abolitionist,  who,  with 
Brougham,  scouted  “  the  wild  and  guilty  fan¬ 
tasy  that  man  can  hold  property  in  man,”  and 
who  had  proclaimed  emancipation  to  be  the 
duty  of  the  master  and  the  right  of  the  slave, 
when  he  ”  held,”  in  the  words  of  Whittier, 
“  property,  liberty,  and  life  itself  at  the  mercy 
of  lawless  mobs the  Free  Soiler,  who  believed 
with  William  Ellery  Clianning,  that  to  extend 
slavery  “  we  invite  the  scorn,  indignation,  and 
abhorrence  of  the  world  :”  the  Whig,  who  be¬ 
lieved  with  Adams  that  “  slavery  taints  the 
very  sources  of  moral  principle  ;”  with  Clay, 
that  “  it  is  a  grievous  wrong  no  contingency 
can  make  right with  Webster,  that  “  it  is 


opposed  to  the  whole  spirit  of  the  Gospel,  and 
to  the  teachings  of  Jesus  Christ  :”  and  the 
Democrat,  in  whose  ear  lingered  the  deathless 
words  of  Jefferson  and  Madison,  the  Democrat¬ 
ic  leaders  of  our  earlier  times.  This  political 
organization,  born  of  the  holier  aspirations  of 
the  people,  became  the  Republican  party.  Is 
it  matter  for  wonder,  then,  that  between  this 
party— the  product  of  the  highest  ideas  of  the 
Christian  civilization  of  the  Western  World — 
and  that  party,  inheriting  the  maddening 
passions,  cruel  prejudices,  and  disorganizing 
theories  that  nurture  slavery  and  develop  its 
power,  there  should  have  been,  during  these 
fourteen  years,  conflicts  of  ideas,  principles, 
and  policies  which  have  shaken  society  to  its 
foundation  ? 

Ere  this  party  could  make  a  national  organ¬ 
ization  or  find  a  name,  it  was  forced  into  action. 
To  silence  the  protests  of  free  labor,  whose 
inheritance  they  were  despoiling,  the  Demo¬ 
cratic  chiefs  beguiled  the  people  with  the  illu¬ 
sions  of  “  squatter  sovereignty.”  The  people 
of  the  Territories  were  to  be  left  “  perfectly 
free  to  vote  slavery  down  or  vote  slavery  up.” 
But  the  men  who  had  ruthlessly  violated  the 
plighted  faith  of  the  nation  did  not  hesitate  to 
violate  their  own  pledges  to  the  toiling  men 
who  were  striving  to  make  homes  and  found 
the  institutions  of  freedom  beyond  the  Mis¬ 
souri.  The  slave  propagandists,  so  long  ac¬ 
customed  to  unquestioned  supremacy,  were 
startled  by  the  grand  uprising  of  the  hosts  of 
freedom,  and  the  determined  purpose  of  free 
labor  to  recover  its  lost  inheritance.  (Loud  ap¬ 
plause.)  They  saw  that,  unless  they  could 
thwart  the  champions  of  free  labor,  their  cri¬ 
minal  victory  was  but  a  barren  triumph. 

They  sounded  the  alarm.  They  bade  their 
brutal  tools  invade  Kansas,  seize  ballot-boxes, 
elect  legislatures,  enact  slave  codes,  silence 
free  speech,  and  bathe  its  soil  with  blood. 
Faithfully  did  the  Democratic  party  toil  in 
Kansas,  in  Congress,  in  the  Executive  depart¬ 
ments,  everywhere,  to  execute  these  decrees. 
Hordes  of  border  ruffians  rushed  into  the  ter¬ 
ritory,  usurped  the  government,  enacted  slave 
codes,  robbed,  burned,  and  murdered.  In 
Congress  their  champions  were  hardly  less 
brutal  than  in  the  wilds  of  that  distant  region. 
Charles  Sumner  portrayed  their  crimes,  and 
he  was  smitten  down  on  the  floor  of  the  Sen¬ 
ate  by  a  “  brutal,  murderous,  and  cowardly 
assault.”  Reeder  and  Walker  and  Stanton, 
striving  to  right  the  wrongs  of  the  Free  State 
settlers,  were  removed  by  the  Democratic  ad¬ 
ministrations  of  Pierce  and  Buchanan.  In 
obedience  to  imperative  demands,  the  weak 
and  wicked  administration  of  James  Buchanan 
strove  to  force  through  Congress,  by  the  cor¬ 
rupting  appliances  of  Executive  patronage, 
the  Lecompton  constitution.  Defeated  in 
these  efforts,  the  Democracy  successfully  re¬ 
sisted  her  admission  under  her  free  constitu¬ 
tion,  until  its  power  was  broken  by  the  trea¬ 
son  and  secession  of  its  Southern  chiefs.  (A 
voice :  “  That’s  so.”) 

To  the  faith-breaking  abrogation  of  the  Mis¬ 
souri  prohibition,  to  the  border  ruffian  foray, 
to  the  slave  codes,  to  the  lawlessness  that 
bathed  that  beautiful  land  in  blood,  to  the  re¬ 
movals  of  Reeder  and  Walker  and  Stanton,  to 


V 


3 


the  Lecompton  constitution,  to  each  and  all  of 
these,  the  Republican  party  persistently  op¬ 
posed  every  means  sanctioned  by  reason,  by 
humanity,  and  religion  ;  and  this  untiring  pur¬ 
pose,  this  persistent  constancy,  baffled  the 
efforts  of  the  Democracy,  broke  the  line  of  the 
advancing  slave  power,  and  gave  to  the  Union 
a  new  Commonwealth  radiant  with  liberty. 
Kansas,  assured  to  freedom,  was  the  first  fruits 
of  the  Republican  party,  whose  history  now 
glitters  with  brilliant  deeds  and  glorious 
achievements. 

When,  in  1856,  lawless  violence  reddened  the 
sods  with  the  blood,  and  illumined  the  skies 
with  the  burning  cabins,  of  the  Free  State 
settlers,  the  Democratic  party  met  in  national 
convention,  reaffirmed  its  fatal  policy,  nomi¬ 
nated  James  Buchanan,  and  went  into  the 
election  completely  dominated  by  the  slave 
power.  Well  might  the  impulsive  Keitt  boast- 
ingly  exclaim,  “  The  South  has  the  general 
control  of  the  Democratic  party.”  The  Repub¬ 
lican  party,  too,  met  in  national  convention, 
denied  the  authority  of  Congress,  or  any  terri¬ 
torial  legislature,  or  any  other  power,  to  give 
legal  existence  to  slavery  in  the  Territories, 
asserted  the  power  and  the  duty  of  Congress  to 
prohibit  it  in  the  Territories,  and  proclaimed 
its  belief,  with  the  fathers,  in  the  self-evident 
truth  that  all  men  are  created  equal.  (Cries 
of  “  Good.”) 

THE  ISSUES  JOINED. 

The  issues  were  clearly  defined  and  distinctly 
presented.  The  Republican  party,  inspired  by 
patriotism  and  liberty,  appealed  to  the  people, 
by  all  that  was  noblest  and  holiest  in  humanity, 
to  rescue  the  endangered  nation.  The  Demo¬ 
cratic  party,  guided  by  the  disciples  of  Calhoun, 
upon  whose  dazzled  vision  loomed  up  in  the 
near  future  a  confederation  of  slaveholding 
commonwealths,  raised  the  startling  war-cry 
of  disunion.  Slidell,  the  master-spirit  of  the 
Buchanan  canvass,  proclaimed,  “  If  Fremont 
should  be  elected,  the  Union  would  be  dis¬ 
solved.”  Mason  was  for  “  the  separation  of  the 
States.”  Butler  declared,  if  Fremont  should 
be  chosen,  “  I  should  advise  my  legislature  to 
go  at  the  tap  of  the  drum.”  Toombs  announced 
that,  if  Fremont  was  elected,  “the  Union 
would  be  dissolved,  and  ought  to  be  dissolved.” 
Keitt  emphatically  asserted  that,  “  If  Fremont 
is  elected,  adherence  to  the  Union  is  treason  to 
liberty,”  that  “the  Southern  man,  who  will 
submit  to  his  election,  is  a  traitor  and  a  cow¬ 
ard.”  Brooks,  who  would  not  “  post  a  sentinel 
who  would  not  swear  that  slavery  was  right,” 
was,  if  Fremont  should  be  elected,  “  for  the 
people  rising  in  their  majesty,  above  the  laws 
and  the  leaders,  taking  the  power  into  their 
own  hands,  going  by  concert,  or  not  by  concert, 
and  laying  the  strong  arm  of  Southern  free¬ 
men  upon  the  treasury  and  the  archives  of  the 
government.”  Henry  A.  Wise,  who  would  “  in¬ 
troduce  slavery  into  the  heart  of  the  North,” 
was  ready  to  seize  the  Harper’s  Ferry  Arsenal, 
the  Norfolk  Navy  Yard,  to  march  on  Washing¬ 
ton  with  twenty  thousand  men,  and  to  put  the 
military  forces  of  Virginia  upon  a  war  footing, 
so  that  her  chivalry  might  “  hew  their  bright 
way  through  all  opposing  legions.”  The  air 
was  burdened  with  the  seditious,  revolution¬ 


ary,  and  treasonable  utterances  of  Democratic 
orators  and  presses. 

While  these  menaces  were  falling  thick  and 
fast  upon  the  ear  of  the  nation,  the  Republi¬ 
cans  everywhere  avowed  their  unabated  attach¬ 
ment  to  their  country  and  their  government. 
The  crimes  against  Kansas,  the  mobbings, 
scourgings,  and  lyncliings  in  the  South,  did  not 
shake  their  steady  faith  in  Republican  institu¬ 
tions,  while  they  intensified  their  love  of 
country.  Test  the  Republican  party  in  its 
first  great  national  struggle,  by  the  standard 
of  patriotism.  Does  not  that  unerring  ter-t  re¬ 
veal  the  glorious  fact  that  it  was  loyal  in 
thought,  word,  and  deed  ?  Tested  by  that 
standard,  was  not  the  Democratic  party  more 
than  tainted  with  disloyalty  ? 

DEMOCRATIC  DISUNION  THREATS. 

In  the  contest  between  the  vital  forces  of 
slavery  extension  and  slavery  restriction,  the 
Republicans  accepted  as  their  faith  the  creed  of 
human  equality.  They  turned  for  instruction 
and  guidance  to  the  great  men  of  the  South  of 
cur  earlier  times.  They  saw,  with  Washing¬ 
ton,  “the  direful  effects  of  slavery.”  They 
believed,  with  Madison,  that  it  “  was  a  dread¬ 
ful  calamity  ;”  with  Monroe,  that  “  it  preyed 
upon  the  vitals  of  the  Union ;”  with  George 
Mason,  that  “  it  brought  the  curse  of  Heaven 
upon  a  country;”  and,  with  Jefferson,  they 
“  trembled  when  they  remembered  that  God  is 
just  and  that  his  justice  will  not  sleep  forever.” 
They  saw  that  millions  of  acres,  of  the 
finest  soil  of  the  western  world,  were,  in  the 
words  of  one  of  the  sons  of  the  Old  Dominion, 
“barren,  desolate,  and  seared,  as  if  by  the 
avenging  hand  of  heaven.”  They  saw,  too,  that 
slavery  had  not  only  scarred  the  fields  of  the 
South,  but  that  it  had  more  deeply  scarred  the 
face  of  humanity,  that  its  ruinous  power  was 
visibly  written  on  the  foreheads  of  the  bond- 
men,  and  on  the  foreheads,  too,  of  millions  of 
our  own  proud  race.  They  saw  that  it  dis¬ 
honored  labor,  created,  in  the  words  of  Olm¬ 
sted,  “  a  devilish,  undisguised.,  and  recognized 
contempt  for  all  humbler  classes.”  Accepting 
these  teachings,  and  realizing  the  measureless 
evils  and  sumless  agonies  of  slavery,  they 
strove,  with  unflagging  resolution,  to  conse¬ 
crate  the  territorial  possessions  of  the  Republic 
— all  it  then  possessed  and  all  that  it  might 
thereafter  acquire — to  freedom  and  free  insti¬ 
tutions. 

In  this  great  contest  of  1856  the  Democratic 
party  disowned  the  creed  of  the  fathers,  and 
accepted  die  theories  of  the  school  of  Calhoun. 
The  Declaration  of  Independence  was  pro¬ 
nounced  false  and  fallacious,  and  free  society  a 
“  failure,”  “  a  conglomeration  of  greasy  me¬ 
chanics,  filthy  operatives,  small-fisted  farmers,” 
not  “  fit  associates  for  Southern  gentlemen’s 
body  servants.”  These  sentiments,  so  con¬ 
temptuous  of  the  toiling  millions,  passed  unre¬ 
buked  by  Northern  Democrats,  who  followed 
their  leaders  with  craven  srul  and  fettered 
lip.  Tested  by  the  standard  or'  Liberty,  was 
not  the  Republican  party  bravely,  nobly, 
righteously  right?  Was  not  the  Democratic 
party  cowardly,  and  ignobly,  wickedly  wrong  ? 
(Voices  :  “  Yes,  yes.”)  In  the  lights  of  to-day 


4 


what  friend  of  human  rights,  the  wide  world 
over,  would  blur  or  stain  that  bright  record  of 
Republican  fidelity  to  the  sacred  cause  of 
human  nature  ?  Who  would  not  efface,  if  he 
could,  for  the  honor  of  his  race,  that  dark  and 
ever  darkening  record  of  Democratic  apostasy 
to  freedom  ? 

Although  the  Democracy  came  out  of  the 
contest  of  185G  victorious,  its  chiefs  could  not 
fail  to  see  that  it  escaped  defeat  by  the 
timidity  of  that  conservatism  which  shrank 
appalled  before  revolutionary  menaces.  In 
that  grand  uprising,  in  that  doubtful  struggle 
on  the  prairies  of  Kansas,  the  slave  masters 
saw  their  waning  power.  Coming  to  the 
realization  that  every  enduring  principle  of 
national  policy,  every  permanent  interest  of 
the  people  must  continue  to  be  hostile  to  their 
ascendency,  conscious  that  they  could  not 
much  longer  retain  power,  they  addressed 
themselves,  with  earnest  purpose,  to  the  con¬ 
solidation  of  the  South,  appealing  to  Southern 
interest,  and  firing  Southern  ambition  with 
the  idea  of  a  splendid  empire,  commanding, 
with  its  tropical  productions  and  its  millions  of 
slaves,  the  commerce  of  the  world.  They  fired 
the  Southern  heart,  brain,  and  soul,  with  ma¬ 
lignant  hate  and  bitter  scorn  of  Yankee  insti¬ 
tutions,  with  lofty  contempt  of  free  society, 
and  haughty  defiance  of  the  national  govern¬ 
ment.  (Cries  of  “  Shame.”)  Resolved,  in  the 
words  of  Calhoun,  whose  disciples  they  were, 
“  to  force  the  slavery  issue  upon  the  North,” 
they  wrung  from  the  Supreme  Court  the 
Dred  Scott  dicta.  They  bade  New-Mexico 
enact  a  slave  code,  and  also  a  code  for  the 
servitude  of  white  laboring  men.  They  sent 
Walker  to  Central  America  to  win  territory, 
“  for,”  in  the  words  of  Brown  of  Mississippi, 
“  the  planting  and  spreading  of  slavery,” 
and  they  sighed  for  Cuba,  which  they  could 
not  clutch. 

REBEL  YELLS  IN  CONGRESS. 

When  the  nation  was  looking  forward  to  the 
approaching  presidential  election  of  1860,  these 
Southern  Democratic  leaders,  frenzied  with 
the  fanaticism  of  slavery,  came  into  the  36th 
Congress  haughtily  threatening  the  dismem¬ 
berment  of  the  Union,  if  the  people  should 
choose  a  chief  magistrate  opposed  to  slavery 
extension,  protection,  and  domination.  The 
halls  of  Congress  again  rang  with  the  revolu¬ 
tionary  menaces  of  incipient  treason.  Jeffer¬ 
son  Davis,  foremost  among  that  unhallowed 
combination,  had  spent  the  summer  of  1859 
in  the  North.  Returning  to  Mississippi  in  the 
autumn  of  that  year  with  assurances,  that,  if 
the  slavery  contest  came  to  blows,  “  the  North¬ 
ern  Democrats  would  throttle  the  Republicans 
in  their  tracks,”  he  advised  the  people  of  the 
South  to  turn  their  old  muskets  into  Minie 
rifles,  prepare  powder,  shot,  and  shell  ;  for  if 
the  Republicans  should  elect  the  next  Presi¬ 
dent,  he  was  “  for  asserting  the  independence 
of  Mississippi,  for  the  immediate  withdrawal 
from  the  Union.”  Brown,  not  to  be  outdone 
by  his  rival,  “  would  make  a  refusal  to  acquire 
territory,  because  it  was  to  be  slave  territory, 
a  cause  of  disunion.”  Clay  declared  that 
Alabama,  “  if  she  is  not  recreant  to  all  that 
State  pride,  integrity,  and  duty  demand,  will 


never  submit  to  your  authority.”  Toombs 
called  upon  Georgia  to  “  listen  to  no  vain 
babblings,  no  treacherous  jargon  about  overt 
acts  ;  the  enemy  is  at  your  door,  wait  not  for 
him  at  the  hearthstone,  meet  him  at  the 
door-sill.”  Iverson  would  not  even  submit  to 
the  election  of  John  Sherman  for  speaker. 
“  In  that  event,”  he  exclaimed,  “  I  would  walk 
out  of  this  Capitol,  I  would  counsel  my  con¬ 
stituents  instantly  to  dissolve  all  political  ties 
with  a  party  and  a  people  who  thus  trample 
on  our  rights.”  Clingman  would  wait  for  no 
overt  act,  for  “  no  other  ‘  overt  act  ’  can  so  im¬ 
peratively  demand  resistance  on  our  part  as 
the  simple  election  of  their  candidate.” 

The  hall  of  the  House  echoed  with  these 
seditious  mutterings  of  the  disloyal  Demo¬ 
cracy.  Democratic  office-holders,  thronging 
the  galleries,  applauded  the  guilty  menace  to 
‘  shiver  the  Union  from  turret  to  foundation 
stone.”  Slavery,  disloyal  in  every  fibre  of  its 
being,  seemed  to  have  infused  its  malignant 
passion,  its  deadliest  poison,  into  the  brain, 
the  soul,  the  heart  of  the  Democracy.  Tlieir 
record,  for  that  winter,  is  a  record  of  shame¬ 
less  apostasy  to  the  country,  to  the  liberties  of 
the  people,  to  the  civilization  of  the  age.  In 
that  time  of  Democratic  apostasy,  the  Repub¬ 
licans  maintained  with  unflinching  firmness 
the  unity  of  the  Republic,  the  authority  of  the 
government,  and  the  rights  of  mankind.  Who¬ 
ever  reads  the  records  of  that  day  will  realize 
that  Republicanism  was  inspired  by  the  gene¬ 
rous,  elevating,  ennobling  spirit  of  Liberty, 
and  that  the  Democracy  was  dominated  by  the 
narrow,  vulgar,  brutal  barbarism  of  slavery. 

THE  STRUGGLE  OF  1860. 

In  the  Presidential  election  of  1860,  the 
Democracy,  that  had  borne  the  banners  of 
slavery,  won  its  victories,  and  shared  its  crimes, 
was  severed  into  two  factions  ;  but  these  fac¬ 
tions  struggled  right  on  with  equal  subservi¬ 
ency  to  their  old  masters.  One  faction 
proclaimed,  in  the  language  of  President 
Buchanan,  that,  “by  virtue  of  the  Constitu¬ 
tion  the  master  has  the  right  to  take  his  slave 
into  the  Territories  as  property  and  have  it 
protected  there  under  the  Federal  Constitu¬ 
tion,”  that  “  neither  Congress  nor  the  Terri¬ 
torial  legislature,  nor  any  human  power  has 
any  authority  to  annul  or  impair  this  vested 
right.”  This  section  of  the  Democracy,  thus 
resolved  to  force  the  nation  to  accept  the 
creeds,  acknowledge  the  sway,  and  bear  the 
crimes  of  slave  propagandism,  nominated 
John  C.  Breckinridge.  This  slave  code  sec¬ 
tion  went  into  the  canvass  breathing  out 
threats  of  civil  war.  They  would  permit  the 
Republicans  to  win  power  only  “  over  the  pros¬ 
trate  bodies  of  the  slain  sons  of  the  South.” 
The  squatter  sovereignty  section,  timidly 
shrinking  from  the  logic  of  its  “  great  princi¬ 
ple,”  submitted  to  the  Supreme  Court,  which 
had  already  made  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  the 
transcendent  question,  whether  a  million  and 
a  half  of  the  square  miles  of  the  Republic 
should  be  gladdened  by  the  footsteps  and 
beautified  by  the  hand  of  free  labor,  or  seared 
and  blasted  by  the  feudal  curse,  whose  whips 
and  yokes  insult  humanity,  went  into  the 


5 


canvass  under  the  leadership  of  Douglas,  who 
“  did  not  care  whether  slavery  was  voted  up 
or  voted  down,”  and  of  Herschel  V.  Johnson, 
who  believed  that  “  capital  should  own  labor.” 

The  Republican  party,  rejecting  with  horror 
the  wicked  dogma  that  the  Constitution  of 
Christian  America  carried  slavery  wherever 
it  went,  and  that  the  nation’s  flag  protected  it 
wherever  it  waved,  disavowing  the  abhorrent 
idea  that  capital  should  own  labor,  caring 
whether  slavery  should  be  voted  down  or 
voted  up,  bravely  accepted  the  duties  imposed 
upon  it  by  the  needs  of  the  country  and  the 
providence  of  Almighty  God.  Assembling  in 
national  convention,  it  proclaimed  that  the 
maintenance  of  the  principle  that  all  men  are 
created  equal,  is  essential  to  the  preservation 
of  our  Republican  institutions  ;  that  it  held  in 
abhorrence  all  schemes  for  disunion  ;  that  the 
dogma  that  the  Constitution  carried  slavery 
into  the  Territories  was  a  dangerous  political 
heresy,  revolutionary  in  its  tendency,  and  that 
the  normal  condition  of  the  Territories  was 
that  of  freedom.  Proclaiming,  as  its  faith  and 
creed,  this  platform,  which  breathed  the  vital 
spirit  of  freedom,  patriotism,  justice,  and  hu¬ 
manity,  it  presented  to  the  nation  Abraham 
Lincoln,  whose  name  will  linger  in  the  hearts 
and  in  the  memories  of  men  so  long  as  Pa¬ 
triotism  and  Liberty  shall  have  shrines  on 
earth.  (Loud  and  long-continued  applause.) 

These  two  sections  of  the  Democracy,  though 
“  distinct  like  the  billows,”  were  yet  “  one  like 
the  sea,”  in  fidelity  to  the  interests  of  slavery. 
Though  rent  and  torn,  it  went  into  the  canvass, 
appealing  to  the  brutal  passions,  selfish  in¬ 
stincts,  and  unmanly  fears  of  the  country.  The 
leaders  of  these  factions  vied  with  each  other 
in  scoffing  at  the  self-evident  truths  of  the  De¬ 
claration  of  Independence.  Breckinridge,  the 
leader  of  one  faction,  pronounced  these  truths 
“  abstractions,”  which  would  “  lead  our  coun¬ 
try  rapidly  to  dissolution.”  Douglas,  the  chief 
of  the  other  faction,  defined  those  sublime 
truths  to  mean,  that  “  British  subjects,  on  this 
continent,  were  equal  to  British  subjects  born 
and  residing  in  Great  Britain.”  Abraham  Lin¬ 
coln  pronounced  the  great  truth  of  that  im¬ 
mortal  declaration  to  be  “  applicable  to  all 
men  and  all  times,”  that  “  to-day  and  in  all 
coming  days  it  shall  be  a  rebuke  and  a  stum¬ 
bling-block  to  the  harbingers  of  reappearing 
tyranny  and  oppression.”  The  Republican 
party,  believing,  with  its  leader,  that  “  this  is 
a  world  of  compensations,  and  he  who  would 
be  no  slave  must  consent  to  have  no  slave,” 
that  “  those  who  deny  freedom  to  others  de¬ 
serve  it  not  for  themselves,  and,  under  a  just 
God,  can  not  long  retain  it,”  appealed  to  the 
people  to  rally  to  the  standard  of  imperiled 
liberty.  Nearly  two  millions  of  men,  regard¬ 
less  of  the  treasonable  menaces  and  revolu¬ 
tionary  teachings  of  the  Democratic  leaders, 
and  the  ignoble  and  spiritless  submission  of 
the  Democratic  masses,  thronged  to  the  ballot- 
box,  dethroned  the  slave  power,  and  made 
Abraham  Lincoln  President  of  the  United 
States.  (Great  cheering.) 

South-Carolina,  trained  for  thirty  years  in 
the  school  of  treason,  leaped  headlong  into  re¬ 
bellion  ;  other  States  quickly  followed  her  ex¬ 
ample.  Then  the  vaunted  Southern  Confede¬ 


racy,  the  dream  of  Slave  perpetuatists  for  a 
generation,  rose,  on  the  basis  that  involuntary 
servitude  was  the  normal  condition  of  the 
black  race  in  America.  Coming  into  Congress 
with  official  oaths  on  their  perjured  lips,  these 
architects  of  ruin  plotted  conspiracies  in  Con¬ 
gress,  in  the  Cabinet,  in  the  Army,  in  the 
Navy,  everywhere,  for  the  dismemberment  of 
the  Union  and  the  death  of  the  nation.  The 
Republic  of  Washington  seemed  doomed  to  a 
swift  and  ignominious  dissolution — to  be  strick¬ 
en  from  the  roll  of  nations.  While  these  con¬ 
spirators  were  organizing  treason,  seducing 
the  weak,  and  corrupting  the  venal,  while  they 
were  seizing  forts,  arsenals,  arms,  and  millions 
of  public  property,  raising  batteries  for  assault 
or  defence,  firing  upon  the  old  flag,  which 
covered  bread  for  starving  soldiers,  they  were 
receiving,  not  the  withering,  blasting  rebukes 
of  insulted  patriotism,  but  aid  and  comfort 
from  their  Northern  Democratic  associates. 

The  Democratic  President,  poor,  weak  old 
man,  made  haste  to  assure  the  insurrectionary 
chiefs  that  he  had  arrived  at  the  conclusion 
“  that  no  power  had  been  delegated  to  Con¬ 
gress  to  coerce  into  submission  a  State  which 
is  attempting  to  withdraw  or  which  has  en¬ 
tirely  withdrawn  from  the  confederacy.”  At¬ 
torney-General  Black  pronounced  against  the 
power  of  the  government  to  coerce  a  seceding 
State,  and  maintained  that  the  attempt  to  do 
so  “  would  be  an  expulsion  of  such  State  from 
the  Union,”  and  would  absolve  all  the  States 
“from  their  Federal  obligations,”  and  the  peo¬ 
ple  from  contributing  “  their  money  or  their 
blood  to  carry  on  a  contest  like  that.”  Did 
not  these  disorganizing  opinions  of  the  Presi¬ 
dent  and  of  the  Attorney-General,  showing 
the  utter  impotency  of  the  imperiled  nation, 
“  give  aid  and  comfort  ”  to  the  conspirators  ? 
Did  not  these  sworn  guardians  of  the  nation 
leave  the  government  weaponless,  at  the  mer¬ 
cy  of  the  armed  hands  of  the  assassins  of  the 
Union  ? 

Jefferson  Davis,  when  he  assumed  the  Presi¬ 
dency  of  the  Confederate  government,  and  pro¬ 
claimed  that  “  we  have  entered  upon  a  career 
of  independence,  and  it  must  be  inflexibly  pur¬ 
sued,  through  many  years  of  controversy,  with 
our  late  associates  of  the  Northern  States,” 
held  the  written  assurance  of  ex-President 
Pierce,  who  believed  that  the  disruption  of 
the  Union  would  not  occur  without  “  blood,” 
that  “  the  fighting  will  not  be  along  Mason 
and  Dixon’s  line  merely,  it  will  be  within  our 
own  borders,  in  our  own  streets.”  Did  not 
this  assurance  of  Franklin  Pierce,  that  the 
fighting  would  be  in  our  streets,  between  our 
own  citizens,  “  give  aid  and  comfort  ”  to  the 
rebel  President  ?  (Groans  for  Pierce.) 

THE  TREASONABLE  DEMOCRACY. 

Pendleton,  who  now  felicitates  himself  upon 
the  fact  that  he  imposed  his  policy,  although  he 
could  not  impose  himself,  upon  the  Democratic 
Convention,  declared,  in  the  House  of  Represen¬ 
tatives,  in  the  presence  of  his  Democratic  asso¬ 
ciates,  gleefully  chuckling  over  the  severed 
Union,  that  “  armies,  money,  blood,  can  not 
maintain  this  Union,”  “  the  whole  scheme  of 
coercion  is  impracticable,”  “  it  is  contrary  to  the 


6 


genius  and  the  spirit  of  the  Constitution.”  He, 
who  had  never  a  word  of  cheer  for  the  loyal, 
assured  the  retiring  conspirators  that  “  if  they 
must  leave  the  family  mansion,  I  would  bid 
them  farewell  so  tenderly,  that  they  would  be 
forever  touched  by  the  recollection.”  Vallan- 
digham,  who  has  just  forced  the  reluctant 
Seymour  to  accept  the  proffered  honors  of  the 
New-York  Convention,  had,  in  that  city,  on 
the  eve  of  the  Presidential  election,  when 
meditated  treason  lowered  over  the  country, 
proclaimed  that  “  if  any  one  of  the  States 
should  secede,  I  never  would,  as  a  Represent¬ 
ative  in  Congress,  vote  one  dollar  whereby  one 
drop  of  American  blood  should  be  shed  in  civil 
wrar.”  Referring  to  that  early  pledge  of  faith¬ 
lessness  to  his  country,  after  armed  treason  had 
opened  its  batteries  upon  the  steamer  bearing 
food  to  the  famishing  defenders  of  beleaguered 
Sumter,  he  defiantly  said,  “  I  deliberately  re¬ 
peat  and  reaffirm  it,  resolved,  though  I  stand 
alone,  though  all  others  yield  and  fall  away, 
to  make  it  good  to  the  last  moment  of  my  of¬ 
ficial  life.”  Did  not  that  pledge  fire  the  hot 
blood  of  the  secessionists  of  South-Carolina  ? 
Did  not  the  reaffirming  of  that  unpatriotic 
declaration  excite  the  hopes  and  nerve  the 
arms  of  traitors  aiming  blows  at  the  nation’s 
life  ?  Did  not  that  pledge,  and  the  reaffirming 
of  that  pledge,  cause  American  blood  to  flow 
in  civil  war? 

In  that  time  of  peril,  when  the  government 
rocked  beneath  the  blows  rained  upon  it  by 
Democratic  traitors  ;  in  those  days  of  anxiety 
and  gloom,  when  the  hearts  of  the  loyal 
throbbed  heavily  over  the  sorrows  of  their 
betrayed  country,  there  came  from  Democratic 
orators,  Democratic  presses,  and  Democratic 
convocations,  all  over  the  North,  bitter  re¬ 
proaches  to  loyalty,  and  words  of  cheer  to 
disloyalty.  From  the  capital  of  the  Empire 
State,  from  that  great  Democratic  Convention 
at  Tweddle  Hall,  Horatio  Seymour  sent  forth 
these  words,  to  burden  the  patriotic  men  who 
were  maintaining  the  just  power  of  the  gov¬ 
ernment,  and  to  cheer  on  its  deadliest  foes : 
“  Let  us  see  if  successful  coercion  by  the  North 
is  less  revolutionary  than  successful  secession 
by  the  South.”  Did  not  these  disorganizing 
words  of  Horatio  Seymour  sadden  the  coun¬ 
try’s  friend  -  and  inspirit  the  country’s  enemies  ? 
Were  not  .hese  opinions,  pledges,  assurances 
of  Buchanan,  Black,  Pierce,  Pendleton,  Val- 
landigham,  and  Seymour,  inspirations  to  the 
Southern  leaders  of  secession  and  disunion  ? 
Did  they  not  invite  and  incite  ci\Til  war? 
Does  not  the  blood  of  our  slain  sons  rest  heav¬ 
ily  on  the  souls  of  our  Democratic  politicians  ? 
Did  not  these  utterances  of  such  exponents  of 
Northern  Democracy  linger  in  the  memory  of 
Governor  Orr,  when  he  said  to  the  men  of 
South-Carolina :  “  Many  of  you  will  remember 
that,  when  the  Avar  first  commenced,  great 
hopes  and  expectations  Avere  held  out  by  our 
friends  in  the  North  and  West  that  there 
Avould  be  no  Avar,  and  that,  if  it  commenced, 
it  Avould  be  north  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line, 
and  that  it  would  not  be  in  the  South”  ?  Did 
not  Horatio  Seymour  hold  out  “  great  hopes 
and  expectations”  to  rebels,  weaponed  Avith 
the  bullet,  in  1861  ?  Does  he  not  noAv  hold 
out  “  great  hopes  and  expectations”  to  Wade 


Hampton,  Forrest,  and  Robert  Toombs,  Avho 
defiantly  declares  “  as  we  have  no  possibility 
of  fighting  with  the  sword,  let  us  fight  Avitii 
the  ballot-box”  ?  (A  Voice  :  “  Dovvn  with  the 
traitors.”) 

W  hen  Southern  senators  Avere  announcing 
that  the  slave  States  were  intending  to  go  out 
of  the  Union,  that  a  “Southern  confederacy 
Avill  be  formed,  and  it  will  be  the  most  success¬ 
ful  government  in  the  Avorld,”  timid  conser¬ 
vatism  demanded  a  compromise,  by  which  the 
nation,  by  irrepealable  constitutional  amend¬ 
ments,  Avas  to  recognize,  establish,  and  protect 
slavery  in  the  Territories  then  held,  or  which 
might  thereafter  be  acquired  South  of  36°  30'  ; 
to  deny  poAver  to  Congress  to  abolish  slavery 
in  the  nation’s  capital ;  to  alloAv  slave  masters 
and  flesh  jobbers  to  take  slaves  in  and 
through  the  free  States  ;  to  take  from  men  of 
African  descent  citizenship  and  suffrage  ;  and 
to  send  out  of  the  country,  at  the  expense  of 
the  Treasury  of  the  United  States,  such  free 
negroes  as  the  States  might  desire  to  have 
removed.  This  most  degrading,  dishonoring, 
and  humiliating  proposition — by  far  the 
Avickedest  proposition  ever  made  in  the  in¬ 
terests  of  slavery  in  America — was,  in  bitter 
mockery,  christened  a  “  Compromise.”  This 
compromise  the  nation  Avas  asked  to  accept,  not 
to  bring  South-Carolina  and  the  Gulf  States 
back,  but  to  keep  the  border  States  from  going 
out ;  not  to  bring  pronounced  rebels  in,  but  to 
keep  quaking  consenTatfves  from  going  out. 
Reason  and  conscience,  love  of  country  and  of 
the  race,  forbade  the  Republicans  in  Congress 
to  consummate  that  crime  against  the  country 
and  its  free  institutions.  They  could  not,  they 
dared  not  do  so,  even  under  the  menaces  of  a 
bloody  civil  Avar.  They  feared,  if  they  should 
change  their  country  from  a  free  to  a  slave¬ 
holding  nation,  they  Avould  live  amid  the  bitter 
reproaches  of  a  betrayed  people,  and  then  sink 
into  dishonored  graves  with  the  curses  of  earth 
and  of  Heaven  resting  upon  them  forever. 

TREASON  OF  BUCHANAN’S  ADMINISTRATION 

Day  by  day,  during  that  terrible  Avinter,  the 
Republicans  in  Congress,  poAverless  to  sa\Te, 
saw  with  the  profoundest  sorroAv  their  riven 
and  shattered  country  sinking  into  the  fathom¬ 
less  abyss  of  disunion.  A  Democratic  Presi¬ 
dent,  a  Democratic  Attorney-General,  had  sur¬ 
rendered  the  life-preserving  powers  of  the  gov¬ 
ernment.  A  Democratic  Secretary  of  the  Trea¬ 
sury  was  deranging  the  finances  and  sinking 
the*  national  credit.  A  Democratic  Secretary 
of  War  Avas  scattering  the  army,  and  sending 
muskets,  cannon,  and  the  munitions  ot  Avar  to 
be  clutched  by  rising  traitors.  A  Democratic 
Secretary*  of  the  Interior  Avas  permitting  the 
robbery  of  trust  funds,  held  by  the  go\Ternment. 
A  Democratic  Secretary  of  the  Navy  Avas  ren¬ 
dering  that  “  right  arm”  of  the  national  service 
powerless.  A  Democratic  Mayor  of  the  com¬ 
mercial  capital  of  the  country  Avas  proposing 
to  make  that  capital  a  free  city,  independent 
of  the  national  government.  Democratic  lead¬ 
ers  were  ostentatiously  giving  pledges  “  ne\-er 
to  vote  a  man  or  a  dollar”  for  coercion.  Dem¬ 
ocrats  Avere  giving  their  assurances  that  regi¬ 
ments,  marching  to  the  coercion  of  the  South, 


7 


“  must  pass  over  their  dead  bodies.”  Officers 
of  the  Senate  were  members  of  a  secret  organi¬ 
zation,  nightly  plotting  treason  in  the  capital 
of  the  nation.  This  uprising  of  traitors,  these 
pledges  of  Northern  Democratic  leaders,  this 
submission  of  the  Democratic  masses  to  the 
plottings  of  the  insurrectionists,  rendered  more 
vulgarly  insolent  the  champions  of  the  rebel¬ 
lion  at  the  capital.  Sam  Houston  had  not  called 
together  the  Legislature  to  hasten  Texas  out 
of  the  Union.  Iverson  said  that  if  he  did  not 
yield  to  the  sentiment  of  the  people,  “  some 
Texan  Brutus  may  arise  to  rid  Iris  country  of 
this  old,  hoarv-headed  traitor.”  Mr.  Seward 
invited  a  calm  discussion  of  the  pending  issues. 
Clingman  replied  that  “many  of  the  free  de¬ 
baters  were  hanging  on  the  trees  of  Texas.” 
The  unarmed  “  Star  of  the  West,”  bearing  food 
to  defenders  of  Sumter,  was  turned  back  by  the 
frowning  batteries  of  treason.  Wigfall  taunt¬ 
ingly  told  us  that  she  had  swaggered  into 
Charleston  Harbor,  had  received  a  stunning 
blow  on  the  forehead,  and  staggered  out  help¬ 
less,  and  we  dare  not  resent  it.  But  in  that 
“  dark  and  troubled  night”  of  Democratic  apos¬ 
tasy,  Republican  hearts  were  gladdened  by  the 
noble  fidelity  of  three  Democratic  statesmen. 
In  being  Democrats,  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  Joseph 
Holt,  and  John  A.  Dix  did  not  forget  to  be  pa¬ 
triots.  While  Horatio  Seymour  was  sudden- 
ing  the  hearts  of  the  loyal  by  his  unpatriotic 
declaration,  “  Let  us  see  if  successful  coercion 
by  the  North  is  less  revolutionary  than  success¬ 
ful  secession  by  the  South,”  those  same  hearts 
were  thrilled  by  the  immortal  order  of  John 
A.  Dix,  “  If  any  man  hauls  down  the  flag,  shoot 
him.” 

At  last,  that  long,  gloomy,  and  terrible  win¬ 
ter  ended,  and  the  fourth  of  March  gladdened 
the  longing  eyes  and  burdened  hearts  of  the 
patriotic  men  who  clung  to  their  country  with 
deathless  tenacity  when  clouds  and  darkness 
were  settling  upon  it.  To  that  day,  and  to 
Lincoln,  they  had  looked  as  anxiously  as  Wel¬ 
lington,  in  the  crisis  of  Waterloo,  looked  “  for 
night  or  for  Blticher.”  The  riven  and  shatter¬ 
ed  government  passed  from  the  nerveless 
hand  of  that  weakness  which  betrayed  like 
treason,  into  the  honest,  brave,  and  strong  grasp 
of  Abraham  Lincoln.  Then  that  huge,  horrid, 
and  barbarizing  despotism  of  the  slave  propa¬ 
ganda  sunk  to  rise  no  more.  Against  that 
despotism  the  Republicans  had  struggled 
through  seven  weary  years,  amid  obloquy, 
reproach,  and  insult.  History  would  record 
that,  throughout  that  contest,  they  had  acted 
in  harmony  with  the  Constitution  of  their 
country,  with  the  teachings  of  its  illustrious 
framers,  the  utterances  of  poets,  sages,  and 
philosophers,  and  the  great  and  good  of  all  the 
ages,  and  with  the  commands  of  God’s  holy 
word.  That  stainless  record  gave  assurance 
to  all  the  world  that,  in  accepting  the  guar¬ 
dianship  of  their  imperiled  country,  they 
would  cherish  it  with  all  their  hearts,  and  de¬ 
fend  it  with  all  their  hands.  (Long  continued 
cheering.) 

THE  COMBAT  OPENS. 

Soon  the  men  to  whom  the  government  had 
been  intrusted  w'ere  summoned  to  its  defense. 
Mr.  Lincoln,  in  assuming  the  administration, 


had  proclaimed  to  his  dissatisfied  countrymen 
of  the  South  that  “  the  momentous  issues  of 
civil  war  were  in  their  hands.”  But  the  rebel 
chiefs,  fearing  that  the  already  aroused  pas¬ 
sions  of  the  South  might  not  completely  sever 
the  bonds  of  affection ;  fearing,  too,  the  effect 
of  the  closing  words  of  his  inaugural,  where, 
with  such  pathos,  he  said,  “  The  mystic  chords 
of  memory,  stretching  from  every  battle-field 
and  patriot  grave,  to  every  living  heart  and 
hearthstone  all  over  this  broad  land,  will  yet 
swell  the  chorus  of  the  Union,  when  again 
touched,  as  they  surely  will  be,  by  the  better 
angels  of  our  nature,”  the  rebel  Secretary  of 
War  ordered  the  batteries  menacing  Sumter  to 
open  their  fires  upon  that  devoted  fortress. 
That  order  was  swiftly  obeyed.  The  flag  of 
united  America  came  down,  and  the  confede¬ 
rate  flag  waved  over  its  smoking  ruins.  Thus 
was  inaugurated,  by  Southern  Democrats,  that 
great  civil  war  in  which  350,000  loyal  lives 
were  sacrificed,  400,000  were  wounded,  $4,000,- 
000,000  were  expended,  and  the  productive  in¬ 
dustries  of  the  country  burdened  with  a  nation¬ 
al  debt  of  $2,500,000,000.  To  the  full  compre¬ 
hension  of  everv  intelligent  man  in  America, 
whose  mind  has  not  been  poisoned  by  our 
great  national  crime,  nor  maddened  by  parti¬ 
sanship,  slavery  was  the  inspiration  of  this  ter¬ 
rible  conflict,  and  the  Democratic  party  its  in¬ 
strument,  which  must  be  held  responsible,  be¬ 
fore  the  present  and  coming  ages,  for  every 
drop  of  blood,  and  every  tear  of  sorrow,  agony, 
or  affection ;  for  every  dollar  already  ex¬ 
pended,  and  for  every  dollar  of  taxation  which 
must,  in  so  many  forms,  and  for  so  many  years, 
rest  heavily  on  the  capital  and  labor  of  the 
country.  When  any  one  gazes  on  the  grave  of 
some  brave  soldier  who  fell  in  our  defense, 
upon  one  wounded  in  the  same  stern  conflict, 
or  upon  the  vacant  chairs  around  the  hearth¬ 
stones  of  the  land  ;  whenever  lie  is  called  to 
contribute  to  the  relief  of  the  wives  and  chil¬ 
dren  of  our  slain  countrymen  ;  whenever  he 
reads  the  tax  list,  or  pays,,in  some  of  its  various 
forms,  his  portion  of  our  vast  taxation,  let  him 
not  forget  that  all  this  is  due  to  the  apostasy 
of  the  Democratic  party — to  the  open  treason 
of  its  Davises,  Toombs,  and  Masons  of  the 
South,  and  the  ill-concealed  sympathy  of  the 
Pierces,  the  Seymours,  the  Pendletons,  and 
their  many  other  partisans  at  the  North. 

•  THE  UPRISING  OF  THE  PEOPLE. 

The  Republican  administration  promptly 
accepted  “  the  momentous  issues  of  civil  war,” 
thus  forced  upon  it.  The  President  immedi¬ 
ately  issued  a  call  for  75,000  men  to  protect 
the  capital ;  which  was  followed,  in  a  few  days, 
by  another  for  300,000,  for  the  suppression  of 
the  Rebellion.  On  the  4th  of  July,  Congress 
assembled,  gave  the  President  500,000  men 
and  $500,000,000,  and  adopted  the  requisite 
legislation  for  the  organization  and  government 
of  the  military  forces  of  the  United  States. 
The  uprising  of  the  people,  startled  by  the 
echoes  of  the  cannon  which  treason  trained  on 
Sumter,  had  silenced  the  rebel-sympathizing 
Democracy.  Little  was  now  heard  against 
“  coercion  ;”  but  Breckinridge,  who  yet  lin¬ 
gered  in  the  Senate,  and  Powell,  Pendleton, 


8 


Cox,  Vallandigham,  and  their  Democratic 
associates  protested  against  “  the  subjugation 
of  the  South.”  The  Administration,  sustained 
by  Congress,  the  united  Republican  party,  and 
many  patriotic  men  of  the  Democratic  and 
other  political  organizations  in  the  nation, 
raised  and  sent  into  the  field  more  than  2,000,- 
000  men,  created  the  most  powerful  navy  that 
ever  rode  the  ocean,  fought  six  hundred  actions 
upon  land  and  sea,  “  coerced”  rebel  States, 
“  subjugated”  the  South,  destroyed  or  captured 
the  rebel  armies,  and  utterly  annihilated  the 
power  of  the  Confederate  government ;  so  that 
a  rebel  bayonet  no  longer  gleamed  in  the 
Southern  sun,  nor  a  rebel  banner  waved  on  the 
Southern  breeze. 

LOYAL  DEMOCRATS  FOR  THE  COUNTRY. 

In  the  grand  uprising  of  the  people,  after  the 
firing  upon  Sumter,  many  Democrats  who  had 
followed  the  lead  of  Buchanan,  Pierce,  Sey¬ 
mour,  Pendleton,  and  their  compeers,  nobly 
atoned  for  the  past  by  consecrating  themselves, 
all  they  were  and  all  they  hoped  to  be,  to  their 
country.  During  these  seven  years  of  trial,  in 
the  field  and  in  the  councils  of  the  nation,  they 
have  associated  their  names  forever  with  the 
defenders  of  the  country  and  the  champions  of 
liberty  ;  but  most  of  the  leaders  of  the  Democ¬ 
racy  bowed  rather  than  yielded  to  the  patri¬ 
otic  current  that  swept  over  the  land.  Poisoned 
by  slavery,  dominated  so  long  by  the  slave 
power  and  the  chiefs  of  the  rebellion,  they 
trusted  that  the  disappointments,  losses,  and 
sacrifices  of  the  war  would  bring  a  reaction, 
and  that  their  hour  of  triumph  would  soon 
come.  General  John  Cochrane,  who  well  knew 
these  Democratic  leaders,  said,  in  a  letter  writ¬ 
ten  from  the  swamps  of  the  Chickahominv,  in 
the  early  summer  of  1862  :  “  They  will  emerge 
from  their  gloom  as  the  shadows  fall  upon  tlieir 
country.”  The  shadows  soon  fell  upon  the 
country.  Disasters  came  to  our  armies.  The 
disaimointments  and  sacrifices  of  the  war,  and 
Mr.  Lincoln's  Proclamation  of  Emancipation, 
hastened  the  hoped-for  reaction.  State  after 
State  pronounced  against  the  Administration. 
In  their  triumphs  the  Democratic  leaders 
indulged  in  words  and  acts  showing  unmistak- 
ably  to  all  the  world  that  they  regarded  the 
government  of  the  United  States  and  Abraham 
Lincoln,  not  the  government  of  the  confede¬ 
racy  and  Jefferson  Davis,  their  foes.  So  un¬ 
patriotic  were  the  legislatures  of  Indiana  and 
Illinois  that  Governor  Morton  and  Governor 
Yates  were  forced  to  prorogue  them  and  send 
the  conspirators  to  their  homes.  Democratic 
orators,  presses, and  societies,  all  over  the  North, 
assailed  the  Administration,  struggling  to  sup¬ 
press  the  rebellion,  in  language  so  violent, 
seditious,  and  revolutionary,  that  it  gave  confi¬ 
dence  to  the  rebel  councils  and  hope  to  the 
rebel  armies.  Horatio  Seymour,  elected  in  the 
disastrous  autumn  of  1862  governor  of  New- 
York,  over  the  patriotic  and  self-sacrificing 
Wadsworth,  professing  to  speak  for  a  dissatis¬ 
fied  people,  burdened  by  word  and  act  the 
great  heart  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  To  this 
carping  and  fault-finding  governor,  Mr.  Lin¬ 
coln  sent  the  very  significant  message,  that  “  if 
he  wants  to  be  President  of  the  United  States, 


he  had  better  unite  with  me  in  preserving  the 
United  States,  to  be  president  of.” 

THE  YALLANDIGHAM  AND  PENDLETON  GANG. 

Exhaustive  marches  and  decimating  battles 
thinned  the  armies  that  carried  upon  their 
glittering  bayonets  the  faith  of  the  Republic. 
Their  wasting  ranks  must  be  refilled  with  the 
fresh  blood  of  heroic  manhood.  The  exhaust¬ 
ing  demands,  early  made  on  the  country,  the 
pressing  wants  and  high  rewards  of  labor, 
checked  enlistments.  To  fill  the  ranks  of  the 
country’s  defenders,  to  equalize  the  burdens 
of  war  between  the  States  and  sections  of  the 
same  States,  the  thirty-seventh  Congress,  in 
its  closing  hours,  passed  an  “  Act  for  enrolling 
and  calling  out  the  national  forces.”  In  pass¬ 
ing  that  great  measure,  the  Republicans  in 
Congress  believed  it  would  revive  the  droop¬ 
ing  heart  of  the  people,  fill  the  wasting  ranks 
of  our  battalions,  carry  dismay  into  the  coun¬ 
cils  of  treason,  and  give  assurance  to  the 
nations  of  the  earth  that  the  American  people 
had  that  spirit  of  personal  sacrifice  and  heroic 
endeavor  which  would  insure  the  unity  of  the 
Republic  and  the  perpetuity  of  the  nation. 
But,  unmindful  of  the  pressing  needs  of  the 
bleeding  country,  the  Democrats  fiercely  op¬ 
posed  its  enactment.  Vallandigham,  pledged 
to  vote  neither  men  nor  money,  denounced  it 
as  a  measure  “  to  abrogate  the  Constitution, 
and  erect  upon  the  ruins  of  civil  and  political 
liberty  a  stupendous  structure  of  despotism.” 
Pendleton  and  Yoorhees  joined  in  its  denun¬ 
ciation.  Cox  would  prevent  the  enrolling  of 
black  men  to  fight  the  battles  of  the  endan¬ 
gered  country.  Democratic  orators  and  presses, 
open  and  secret  societies,  united  in  assailing  a 
measure  that  enabled  the  government  to  com¬ 
mand  the  entire  resources  of  the  nation  for  its 
defense.  Fernando  Wood  and  his  Mozart 
tribe,  the  crafty  but  irresolute  Seymour,  in¬ 
stilled  into  the  "too  credulous  ear  of  ignorance 
poisonous  words,  inflaming  its  heart  and  mad¬ 
dening  its  brain,  till  Murder,  clutching  its 
weapon,  and  Arson,  seizing  its  brand,  reddened 
the  pavements  of  New-York  with  blood  and 
illumined  her  streets  with  the  flames  of  burn¬ 
ing  asylums.  (“  Down  with  Seymour !”)  When 
we  consider  these  reckless  utterances  of  men 
who  denied  our  right  to  coerce  States  or  “  sub- 
jugate  the  South,”  the  treasonable  organiza¬ 
tions  of  the  “  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle  ” 
and  “  Sons  of  Liberty,”  in  the  West,  the 
speeches  of  Democratic  politicians  who, 
throughout  the  war,  never  uttered  a  word 
that  could  be  tortured  into  meaning  that  the 
rtbel  government,  rebel  armies,  and  rebel 
people,  were  their  enemies  or  the  enemies  of 
their  country,  we  do  not  wonder  that  rebel 
chiefs  and  rebel  presses,  even  after  Lee's  army 
had  been  hurled  back  from  the  glorious  field 
of  Gettysburg,  Vicksburg  had  surrendered  to 
Grant,  and  Port  Hudson  to  Banks,  and  the 
waters  of  the  Mississippi  to  the  sea  reflected 
the  stars  of  the  national  flag,  boastfully  pro¬ 
claimed  that  “  the  gore  of  Lincoln’s  hated 
minions  wets  the  streets,”  that  the  govern¬ 
ment  is  “  cowering,”  and  that  “  the  days  as 
well  as  the  soldiers  of  the  Federal  army  are 
numbered.”  (Great  applause.) 


9 


WISDOM  OF  CONGRESS  AND  PATRIOTISM  OF 
THE  PEOPLE. 

The  Republican  Administration  had  not 
only  to  create  armies  and  navies,  but  to  per¬ 
form  the  far  more  difficult  task  of  providing 
the  vast  resources  to  sustain  a  conflict  so  gigan¬ 
tic.  It  established  internal  revenue  systems, 
revised  the  revenue  laws,  and  established  a 
national  banking  system.  The  Republicans 
may  have  committed  some  mistakes  in  the 
details  of  their  financial  policy,  but  the  success 
of  that  policy  is  the  marvel  of  men  the  world 
over.  Its  wonderful  success  falsified  the  pre¬ 
dictions  of  financial  men  in  the  old  world  and 
in  the  new.  Democrats  have  carped  at  it, 
criticised  it,  misapprehended  it,  and  misrepre¬ 
sented  it.  Many  of  them  predicted  that  the 
bonds  of  the  government  would  never  be 
redeemed,  refused  to  purchase  them  them¬ 
selves,  or  advise  their  friends  to  do  so,  and  are 
presenting  now  a  fitting  sequel  to  their  early 
and  persistent  opposition,  by  their  seeming 
anxiety  and  efforts  to  prove  their  ill-omened 
predictions  true.  Horatio  Seymour  has  it 
authoritatively  announced  that  he  does  not 
own  and  never  has  owned  one  of  the  bonds  of 
the  government.  He  is  known  to  be  a  man 
of  large  wealth,  and  to  liavo  inherited  a  for¬ 
tune.  During  years  of  the  war  the  country 
owed  hundred  of  millions  to  tho  army  it  could 
not  pay.  The  heroes  of  Gettysburg  and  Vicks¬ 
burg  had  gone  months  without  payment  ; 
often  the  government  was  in  debt  five  and  six 
months,  and  sometimes  more,  to  our  soldiers. 
Brave  men  received  and  read  to  their  com¬ 
rades,  around  their  camp-fires,  letters  from  their 
wives,  begging  for  money  to  keep  themselves 
and  their  children  from  want.  Men  who  faced 
shot  and  shell  in  the  field,  were  unmanned 
and  wept  like  children  in  their  tents  over  let¬ 
ters  received  from  their  homes,  because  of  this 
poverty  of  the  national  treasury.  Was  it  not, 
then,  as  patriotic  to  loan  money  to  the  govern¬ 
ment  to  feed  and  clothe  the  country’s  defen¬ 
ders,  and  keep  their  wives  and  children  from 
want,  as  it  was  to  confront  that  country’s  ene 
mies  on  the  field  of  battle?  Patriotic  men, 
and  women,  too,  in  all  the  conditions  of  life, 
loaned  money  to  the  government,  often  to 
their  own  inconvenience  and  disadvantage,  to 
support  and  pay  those  who  were  bleeding  and 
dying  in  it3  defense.  And  yet  the  Democratic 
party  has  become  so  demoralized  by  blind, 
unreasoning  partisanship,  that  Horatio  Sey¬ 
mour,  its  candidate  for  the  presidency,  to 
strengthen  himself  with  the  men  of  his  party, 
who  would  impair  the  credit  and  repudiate  the 
obligations  of  the  government,  incurred  for  its 
salvation,  has  it  authoritatively  announced 
that  he  has  not  now,  and  never  had,  a  single 
bond,  though  given  for  a  purpose  so  sacred, 
and  to  avert  a  peril  so  extreme.  When  hun¬ 
dreds  of  thousands  of  our  brave  soldiers  were 
unpaid  for  months,  leaving,  of  course,  their 
wives  and  children  to  great  inconvenience,  if 
not  to  absolute  and  extreme  suffering:,  often  to 
be  relieved  by  the  hand  of  charity,  because 
the  government  could  not  borrow  money  to 
meet  these  most  imperious  claims,  he,  though 
abounding  in  wealth  of  his  own,  and  the  al¬ 
moner  of  that  of  others,  had  not  a  dollar  for 


those  heroic  men  fighting  his  battles,  nor  for 
their  starving  families,  suffering  for  the  same 
great  cause.  This  announcement  of  Horatio 
Seymour,  that  he  did  not  lend  his  money  to 
the  government  in  the  hour  of  its  extreme 
need  is  a  cowardly  and  unpatriotic  avowal, 
which  should  bring  to  him,  not  the  suffrages 
and  honors  of  the  people,  but  their  blasting  re¬ 
bukes  and  withering  scorn.  The  “  Knights  of 
the  Golden  Circle,”  the  “  Sons  of  Liberty,”  the 
holders  of  the  bonds  of  the  Confederate  govern¬ 
ment,  the  men,  North  and  South,  who,  in  the 
language  of  a  son  of  Maryland,  “  would  not 
pay  the  bondholders  because  the  money  was 
loaned  for  the  wicked  purpose  of  fighting  our 
Southern  brethren,”  may  applaud  this  boastful 
announcement ;  but  the  patriotic  men,  and  the 
men  whose  wives  and  children  were  the  vic¬ 
tims  of  his  unpatriotic  action,  will  applaud  him 
never.  (Applause,  and  cries  of  “  No,  never.”) 

When  the  Legal  Tender  Act  was  pending  in 
the  House  of  Representatives,  Pendleton,  now 
nicknamed  “  Young  Greenbacks,”  declared  that 
these  legal  tender  notes  would  go  out  to  the 
country  “  with  the  mark  of  Cain  upon  them  ;” 
that  they  would  be  “  wanderers  and  vagabonds 
in  the  land and  wherever  they  wandered, 
they  would  carry  bankruptcy  and  repudiation. 
Evils  are  indeed  inseparable  from  paper 
money.  But  the  benefits  to  the  country  of 
that  Legal  Tender  Act  during  the  war  can 
never  be  overestimated.  Pendleton,  who  led 
in  opposition  to  its  adoption,  as  a  temporary 
measure,  in  times  of  dire  necessity — he  who 
deemed  “  greenbacks  ”  “  wanderers  and  vaga¬ 
bonds,”  with  the  “  mark  of  Cain  ”  upon  them — 
assumes  the  championship  now  of  a  system  so 
modified,  that  his  prediction,  that  they  would 
lead  to  bankruptcy  and  repudiation,  may  be 
realized.  (A  voice :  “  Oh !  he  is  played  out.”) 

TRIUMPHS  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

For  many  years  the  toiling  millions  demand¬ 
ed  that  the  public  domain  should  be  withheld 
from  the  hard  grasp  of  the  speculator,  and 
granted,  in  limited  quantities,  to  actual  set¬ 
tlers.  This  demand,  of  land  for  the  landless, 
of  small  farms  tilled  by  men  standing  on  their 
own  acres,  was  made  in  the  interests  of  free¬ 
dom,  culture,  development,  and  Christian  civili¬ 
zation.  It  was  the  idea  of  the  farm  against  the 
plantation — of  free  labor  against  slave  labor 
— of  the  perennial  verdure  of  liberty  against 
the  blight  and  mildew  of  slavery.  The  slave- 
masters  of  the  great  plantations,  the  accepted 
leaders  of  the  Democracy,  were  as  sternly  op¬ 
posed  to  the  policy  of  small  farms  and  “  land  for 
the  landless  ”  as  they  were  to  “  free  soil  ’’  for 
free  labor.  The  Republican  party  coming  into 
power,  the  representative  of  this  policy  of  free 
soil  for  free  labor — of  the  farm  against  the 
plantation — of  land  for  the  landless — conse¬ 
crated  all  the  public  domain  to  freedom,  and, 
by  legislative  enactments,  set  apart  more  than 
a  thousand  million  of  acres  as  homesteads  for 
actual  settlers.  To  the  Republican  party  are 
the  landless  toilers  of  our  country  indebted  for 
this  beneficent  system — this  splendid  inherit¬ 
ance  for  themselves  and  their  posterity. 

J  udge  the  Republican  party,  during  its  seven 
years  of  power,  by  its  deeds  ;  test  it  by  its  de- 


10 


fense  and  protection  of  tlie  nation  against  the 
most  gigantic  conspiracy  of  ancient  or  modern 
times,  by  its  development  of  the  nation’s  power 
and  the  advancement  of  its  material  interests, 
and  it  stands  on  a  higher  plane  than  that  of 
any  political  organization  on  the  globe. 

But  grander  far  than  the  raising  of  armies 
and  the  creation  of  navies,  than  marches  or 
sieges  or  battles  on  land  or  wave,  was  the  far- 
reaching,  comprehensive,  and  crowning  deed 
of  emancipation.  That  huge,  hideous,  and 
horrid  system  of  human  bondage  in  Christian 
America,  upheld  by  the  aggregated  interest  of 
$3,000,000,000  in  the  flesh  and  blood,  brain 
and  soul  of  man,  hedged  about  by  the  accumu¬ 
lated  passions  and  prejudices,  prides  and  ambi¬ 
tions  of  seven  generations,  intrenched  within 
the  social,  political,  and  ecclesiastical  organiza¬ 
tions  and  affiliations  of  life,  was  shivered  to 
atoms  by  the  blows,  sturdy  and  persistent,  of 
the  Republican  party.  By  a  series  of  executive 
and  legislative  acts,  it  broke  the  chains  and 
lifted  from  the  depths  of  chattelhood  up  to  the 
summits  of  manhood  four  and  a  half  millions 
of  beings  made  in  the  image  of  God.  It  was 
said  of  Wilberforce  that  he  went  to  God  with 
the  shackles  of  eight  hundred  thousand  West- 
India  slaves  in  his  hands.  The  Republican 
party  enters  the  forum  of  the  nations  with  four 
and  a  half  millions  of  riven  fetters  in  one 
hand,  and  four  and  a  half  million  of  title-deeds 
of  American  citizenship  in  the  other.  These 
broken  fetters — these  title-deeds — it  holds  up 
to  the  gaze  of  the  living  present  and  the  ad¬ 
vancing  future.  In  the  progress  of  the  ages 
it  has  been  given  to  few  generations,  in  any 
form  or  by  any  modes,  to  achieve  a  work  so 
vast,  so  grand,  so  sure  to  be  recorded  by  the 
historic  pen  or  flung  upon  the  canvas  in  en¬ 
during  colors.  Defeat  and  disaster  may  come 
upon  the  Republican  party — it  may  perish  ut¬ 
terly  from  the  land  it  saved  and  made  free — 
but  its  name  will  be  forever  associated  with 
the  emancipation  of  millions  of  a  poor,  friend¬ 
less,  and  hated  race,  their  elevation  to  the 
heights  of  citizenship,  their  exaltation  to  equal¬ 
ity  of  civil  rights  and  privileges,  and,  crown¬ 
ing  act  of  all,  the  prerogative  “  to  vote  and  to 
be  voted  for.”  These  beneficent  deeds  will 
live  in  the  hearts  of  coming  generations,  and 
“  brighter  glow  and  gleam  immortal,  uncon¬ 
sumed  by  moth  or  rust.”  (Cheers.) 

THE  DISGRACED  DEMOCRACY. 

In  this  grand  work,  applauded  by  earth  and 
blest  of  heaven,  the  Democratic  party  had  no 
part  whatever.  For  more  than  a  quarter  of  a 
century,  before  slavery  raised  the  banners  of 
civil  war,  it  had  been  its  pliant  tool,  ever  swift 
to  come  to  its  support  before  it  was  called,  and 
run  on  its  errands  before  it  was  sent.  Ever 
prompt  to  obey  its  decrees,  the  Democracy 
clung  to  the  relentless  and  unappeasable  foe  of 
the  country  after  that  foe  had  inspired  a  bloody 
revolution  to  blot  the  North- American  Repub¬ 
lic  from  the  map  of  nations.  After  civil  war 
had  reddened  the  bright  waters  and  green 
fields  with  the  blood  of  our  slain  sons — after 
it  had  sent  wounds,  sickness,  and  sorrows  into 
the  homes  of  the  people — the  Democratic  party 
persistently  continued  to  resist  every  measure 


for  the  nation’s  defense,  if  that  measure  tend¬ 
ed,  in  the  slightest  degree,  to  weaken  the  ad¬ 
mitted  cause  of  all  our  woe.  Throughout  the 
war,  of  which  slavery  was  the  inspiration,  the 
heart,  and  soul,  and  long  after  it  became  clear 
to  the  comprehension  of  intelligent  patriotism 
that  its  death  would  be  the  annihilation  of  the 
rebellion,  the  unity  of  the  Republic,  the  life 
of  the  nation,  the  harmonious  development  of 
free  institutions,  the  repose,  culture,  and  re¬ 
nown  of  the  people,  the  Democratic  party 
mourned,  and  would  not  be  comforted,  over 
every  blow  struck  at  the  retreating  fiend. 
(Sensation.) 

As  during  the  seven  years  from  1854  to 
1861,  when  in  possession  of  power,  so  during 
the  seven  years  from  1861  to  1868,  when  out 
of  power,  the  Democratic  party  has  been  the 
deadliest  foe  of  the  African  race  and  of  its 
friends.  It  has  scoffed  at,  and  jeered  at,  every 
generous,  humane,  and  ennobling  idea,  and 
steadfastly  striven  to  defeat  every  measure  to 
make  it  free,  recognize  its  rights,  or  elevate  its 
condition.  It  resisted  making  freeelaves  used 
by  rebels  for  military  purposes  at  the  opening 
of  the  war,  and  the  act  forbidding  officers  of 
the  army  to  return  fugitives  seeking  the  pro¬ 
tection  of  the  national  flag — the  abolition  of 
slavery  in  the  nation’s  capital  and  the  prohibi¬ 
tion  of  slavery  in  the  national  Territories — 
the  repeal  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act  and  the 
freedom  of  slaves  captured  or  coming  within 
the  lines  of  our  armies — the  recognition  of  the 
nationality  of  Hayti  and  Liberia,  and  Mr.  Lin¬ 
coln’s  Proclamation  of  Emancipation — the  en¬ 
rollment  of  black  soldiers  to  fight  the  battles 
of  the  country  and  the  freedom  of  black  sol¬ 
diers,  their  wives  and  their  children — the  ad¬ 
mission  of  the  colored  people  of  the  District  of 
Columbia  to  the  right  to  testify  in  the  courts 
and  to  the  right  to  ride  in  the  public  convey¬ 
ances — the  constitutional  amendment  forever 
abolishing  slavery  in  the  United  States,  and 
the  Freedmen’s  Bureau  for  the  aid,  protection, 
and  education  of  emancipated  bondsmen — suf¬ 
frage  to  colored  men  in  the  District  of  Colum¬ 
bia  and  in  the  Territories  of  the  United  States 
— the  Civil  Rights  measure,  securing  to  black 
men  the  full  and  equal  benefit  of  all  laws  for 
the  security  of  person  and  property,  and  the 
amendment  to  the  Constitution,  providing  that 
no  person  shall  be  denied  equal  protection  of 
the  laws  equalizing  representation,  so  that 
three  of  Wade  Hampton’s  troopers  shall  no 
longer  count  the  same  as  seven  of  the  loyal 
soldiers  of  the  North,  and  forbidding  the  pay¬ 
ment  of  the  rebel  debt  or  payment  for  slaves 
emancipated  —  the  Reconstruction  measure, 
giving  to  colored  men  in  rebel  States  the  right 
to  vote,  and  the  acts  for  restoring  the  seven 
reconstructed  States  to  their  practical  relations 
to  the  government.  During  all  the  struggles 
for  these  and  kindred  measures,  by  which  sla¬ 
very  has  been  abolished  and  the  freedmen 
elevated  to  the  full  rights  and  privileges  of 
American  citizenship  in  the  States  lately  in 
rebellion,  the  Democratic  party  has  appealed 
and  now  appeals  to  the  basest  passions  and 
prejudices,  still  to  oppress  this  people  and  hin¬ 
der  the  realization  of  their  new-born  hopes  in¬ 
spired  by  emancipation.  To  keep  them  in 
bondage  and  still  to  prevent  their  develop- 


11 


ment,  it  lias  studiously  misrepresented  the 
sentiments,  opinions,  and  acts  of  their  friends. 
No  character  however  pure,  no  services  how¬ 
ever  exalted,  could  preserve  any  man,  or  set 
of  men,  from  their  obloquy,  foul  abuse,  and 
viperous  malignity.  (“  That  is  true.” 

THE  CHICAGO  REBEL  CONTENTION. 

In  1864,  when  Grant  was  holding  Lee  in  his 
grasp  in  the  rebel  capital,  and  Sherman  was 
fighting  his  bloody  way  to  Atlanta,  when 
patriot  hearts  were  cheered  by  the  hope  of 
soon  subjugating  the  rebellion,  the  Demo¬ 
cratic  party  assembled  at  Chicago.  Horatio 
Seymour  presided.  The  convention,  inspired 
by  slavery  and  in  sympathy  with  their  rebel 
Democratic  friends  in  rebellion,  resolved  that 
the  “  war  is  a  failure,”  and  demanded  “  the 
cessation  of  hostilities.”  The  Republican  party 
met  in  convention,  declared  for  the  complete 
abolition  of  slavery,  the  subj  ugation  of  the  re¬ 
bellion,  and  the  reelection  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 
These  two  parties,  numbering  more  than  four 
millions  of  voters,  went  to  the  ballot-box.  The 
Republicans  invoked  the  patriotism,  the  love 
of  liberty,  and  the  self-sacrificing  spirit  of  the 
country.  The  Democrats  appealed  to  coward¬ 
ly  fears,  selfish  instincts,  and  unreasoning  pas¬ 
sions  and  prejudices.  The  Democracy,  boast¬ 
ful  as  is  its  wont,  received  21  out  of  234  elec¬ 
toral  votes,  and  was  beaten  by  a  popular  ma¬ 
jority  of  more  than  400,000  votes.  The  spirit 
of  the  rebellion  was  thus  broken.  The  hopes 
of  the  rebel  chiefs,  excited  by  Democratic  as¬ 
surances,  were  crushed,  and,  in  a  few  months, 
the  rebel  armies  surrendered  to  our  advancing 
legions.  (Long  continued  and  vociferous  cheer¬ 
ing.) 

ANOTHER  STRUGGLE. 

In  November  there  is  to  be  another  struggle 
between  these  two  parties  for  the  control  of  the 
national  administration.  The  Republican  party 
met  at  Chicago,  reaffirmed  its  policy  of  recon¬ 
struction,  pronounced  against  all  forms  of  re¬ 
pudiation,  for  the  reduction  and  equalization 
of  taxation,  for  the  equal  protection  of  Ameri¬ 
can  citizens,  for  the  recognized  obligations  to 
our  soldiers,  and  to  the  widows  and  orphans, 
of  the  gallant  dead,  and  for  the  removal  of  re¬ 
strictions  imposed  upon  rebels  as  rapidly  as 
the  safety  of  the  loyal  people  will  admit.  The 
convention  then  presented  the  name  of  General 
Grant,  the  great  captain  who  has  so  often 
marshaled  our  armies  to  victory  ;  and  Schuy¬ 
ler  Colfax,  a  statesman  of  pure  life,  stainless 
honor,  and  commanding  influence 

THE  NEW- YORK  REBEL  CONVENTION. 

The  Democratic  party  assembled  in  national 
convention  in  New-York.  Horatio  Seymour 
again  presided.  That  selection  of  its  presid¬ 
ing  officer  was  a  monition  to  the  country  that 
this  convention  would  be  no  more  patriotic  or 
•wise  than  was  the  Democratic  convention  of 
1864.  There  assembled  the  self-same  leaders, 
or  their  compeers,  that  pronounced,  in  1864, 
the  war,  to  preserve  the  nation’s  life,  “  a  fail¬ 
ure,”  and  demanded  “  a  cessation  of  hostilities,” 
which  would  have  made  inevitable  a  dismem¬ 
berment  of  the  Republic  and  the  death  of  the 


nation.  To  that  convention  came  also  a  few 
disappointed,  sour,  and  fallen  spirits,  who  once 
were  enlisted  with  the  legions  of  Liberty,  but 
who  were  never  imbued  with  the  generous  and 
ennobling  impulses  of  Human  Equality.  There 
came,  too,  the  exponents  and  representatives 
of  the  “  lost  cause.”  These  representatives  were 
not  the  men  whose  eyes  had  been  opened  in  the 
storm  of  civil  war  to  see  the  error  of  secession, 
and  who  had  repented  of  their  treason  against 
the  best  government  in  the  world — treason 
made  in  the  interest  of  the  wickedest  rebellion 
in  history — a  rebellion  recognizing  slavery  as 
the  normal  condition  of  society  in  Christian 
America  and  the  corner-stone  of  their  new 
government.  These  were  the  men  in  whose 
bosoms  still  burned  the  aggressive  and  domi¬ 
nating  spirit  of  oppression  and  caste.  These 
were  the  men  who,  with  no  change  of  feeling, 
sentiment,  or  purpose,  came  to  retrieve  in  the 
arena  of  politics  what  they  had  lost  on  the  field, 
of  battle.  There  was  Wade  Hampton,  of  Soutli- 
Carolina,  who,  on  his  way  to  the  convention, 
said  to  the  students  of  General  Lee’s  college, 
“  The  cause  for  which  Stonewall  Jackson  fell, 
can  not  be  in  vain,  but  in  some  form  will  yet 
triumph.”  There  was  Gov.  Vance,  of  North- 
Carolina,  who  told  rebel  troops,  during  the  war, 
to  “  pile  hell  so  full  of  Yankees  that  their  feet 
will  stick  out  of  the  windows.”  There  was 
Buckner,  of  Kentucky,  who  came  to  Washing¬ 
ton,  at  the  opening  of  the  war,  to  procure  arms 
for  his  State  and  a  commission  for  himself ; 
but  who  went  back  to  Kentucky,  betrayed  his 
State  and  country,  joined  the  rebel  ranks,  and 
was  afterward  forced  to  surrender  “  uncon¬ 
ditionally  ”  to  Gen.  Grant.  There  wras  Preston, 
also  of  Kentucky,  who  abandoned  his  State, 
became  a  rebel  general,  a  commissioner  and 
conspirator  in  Europe,  against  his  country. 
There  was  Basil  Duke,  one  of  John  Morgan’s 
lieutenants  in  his  thieving,  robbing,  and  mur¬ 
derous  raids  through  Ohio  and  Indiana.  There 
was  Robert  Ould,  of  Virginia,  rebel  general 
and  commissioner,  and  familiar  with  the  hor¬ 
rors  of  Belle  Isle  and  Libby  Prison.  There 
was  Forrest,  of  Fort  Pillow  infamy,  concerning 
whose  fiendish  conduct  a  Congressional  com¬ 
mittee  thus  reports  :  “  Of  the  men,  from  300 
to  400  are  known  to  have  been  killed  at  Fort 
Pillow,  of  whom  at  least  Three  Hundred 
were  murdered  in  cold  Mood  after  the  post  was 
in  possession  of  the  rebels,  and  our  men  had 
thrown  down  their  arms  and  ceased  to  offer  re¬ 
sistance i.”  Of  182  members  of  the  convention, 
from  the  rebel  States,  there  was  not  one  Union 
man  of  well-known  and  approved  loyalty. 
There  were  more  rebel  soldiers  than  soldiers 
of  the  Union  army — more  members  of  Jeff 
Davis’s  Congress  than  of  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States.  Is  there  any  wonder,  then, 
that  one,  who  had  heard  the  rebel  battle  yell 
in  the  land  of  the  rebellion,  should  have  in¬ 
stinctively  exclaimed,  “  the  rebel  yell,”  as  he 
heard  the  shout  that  arose  at  the  words  of 
Wade  Hampton’s  resolution,  declaring  the  Re-' 
construction  Acts  “  revolutionary,  unconstitu¬ 
tional,  and  void  ”  ? 

the  young  greenback’s  swindle. 

The  financial  portion  of  the  Democratic 
platform  was  dictated  by  Pendleton.  That 


12 


great  financial  genius  seems  to  be  hugely 
pleased  with  his  work.  It  is,  however,  a 
cheat,  a  delusion,  and  a  snare.  The  govern¬ 
ment  owes  a  bonded  debt  paying  interest,  and 
a  non  paying  interest  debt.  If  this  platform 
means  that  the  government  shall  redeem  the 
bonds  with  the  greenback  debt,  now  issued, 
then  it  is  a  simple  swindle,  for  the  government 
has  none  of  its  greenback  debt  to  use  for  that 
purpose.  If  it  is  meant  that  the  government, 
in  violation  of  its  pledge,  shall  issue  more  of 
its  non-interest  paying  debts  to  redeem  the 
interest-bearing  debt,  then  it  means  a  further 
depreciated  currency,  the  derangement  of 
legitimate  business,  the  robbery  of  honest 
labor,  ruinous  losses,  bankruptcy,  and  ultimate 
repudiation.  (Many  voices  :  “  That’s  true  doc¬ 
trine.”) 

A  REBEL  MAKES  THE  PLATFORM. 

Wade  Hampton  claims  the  honor  of  having 
constructed  so  much  of  the  platform,  touching 
reconstruction,  etc.,  as  declares  it  to  be  “rev¬ 
olutionary,  unconstitutional,  and  void.”  In  a 
speech  to  the  men  of  South-Carolina,  he  says  : 
“  I  said  I  would  take  the  resolutions  if  they 
would  allow  me  to  add  but  three  words,  which 
you  will  find  embodied  in  the  platform.  I 
added  this :  ‘  And  we  declare  that  the  recon¬ 
struction  acts  are  revolutionary,  unconstitu¬ 
tional,  and  void.5  When  I  proposed  that,  every 
single  member  of  the  committee — and  the 
warmest  men  in  it  were  the  men  of  the  North 
— came  forward  and  said  they  would  carry  it 
out  to  the  end.”  The  committee  on  the  plat¬ 
form  and  the  convention  accept  from  Wade 
Hampton  this  declaration,  and  they  pledge 
themselves  to  carry  it  out  to  the  end.  What 
that  “  end”  is  to  be,  is  embodied  in  this 
declaration  of  their  candidate  for  the  vice¬ 
presidency.  In  his  letter  which  secured  his 
nomination,  Mr.  Blair  says :  “  There  is  but 
one  way  to  restore  the  government  and  the 
constitution,  and  that  is  to  declare  the  recon¬ 
struction  acts  null  and  void,  compel  the  army 
to  undo  its  usurpations  at  the  South,  disperse 
the  carpet-bag  State  governments,  and  allow 
the  white  people  to  reorganize  their  own  gov¬ 
ernments  and  elect  senators  and  representa¬ 
tives.  We  must  have  a  president  who  will 
execute  the  will  of  the  people  by  trampling 
into  dust  the  usurpations  of  Congress  known 
as  the  reconstruction  acts.  I  wish  to  stand 
before  the  convention  upon  this  issue,  as  it  is 
one  which  embraces  every  thing  else  that  is  of 
value  in  its  large  and  comprehensive  results.” 

REBEL  OPINIONS. 

The  platform  having  been  constructed,  the 
persuasive  Vallandigham  overcame  the  scru¬ 
ples  of  the  coyish  Seymour,  who  consented  to 
be  “caught  by  the  whirling  tide.55  Under  the 
lead  of  Preston,  Hampton,  and  Forest,  the  con¬ 
vention  associated  the  dashing  Blair  with  the 
timorous  Seymour.  This  disunion  platform, 
declaring  the  reconstruction  of  seven  States 
and  their  representation  in  Congress  “  rev¬ 
olutionary,  unconstitutional,  and  void” — this 
ticket,  pledged  to  “  declare  the  reconstruction 
acts  null  and  void,  compel  the  army  to  undo 
its  usurpations,  disperse  the  carpet-bag  State 
governments,  and  allow  the  white  people  to 


reorganize  their  own  governments  and  elect 
senators  and  representatives” — is  indorsed  by 
the  Northern  Democracy  with  the  6ame  cordi¬ 
ality  with  which  they  indorsed  the  platform 
of  1864,  declaring  “the  war  a  failure,”  and 
demanding  “  the  cessation  of  hostilities.” 
Southern  Democrats,  who  could  not  indorse 
the  Democratic  platform  of  1864,  or  support 
its  ticket,  because  three  quarters  of  a  million 
of  “boys  in  blue”  stood  between  them  and 
their  Northern  friends,  could  leap  over  the 
graves  of  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
dead  heroes,  and  fraternally  embrace  their 
sympathizing  friends,  who  have  ever  main¬ 
tained  that  the  government  could  not  “  coerce 
a  State”  or  “subjugate  the  South,”  and  in¬ 
dorse  platform  and  ticket.  Henry  A.  Wise 
proclaims  that  “  secession  is  more  alive  than 
ever,”  and  he  supports  Seymour  and  Blair 
because  they  will  “  assume  military  power” 
for  the  overthrow  of  the  reconstructed  govern¬ 
ments  of  the  South.  Vance  boasted  to  the 
people  of  Richmond,  on  his  way  home  from 
the  New-York  convention,  that  “  the  South 
would  gain  by  the  election  of  Seymour  and 
Blair  all  it  fought  for  in  the  rebellion.”  Ad¬ 
miral  Semmes,  who  commanded  the  Alabama 
when  the  Kearsage,  in  the  face  of  Europe, 
sent  her  to  the  bottom  of  the  seas,  and  who 
revenged  himself  by  destroying  unarmed 
Yankee  whalers  after  the  rebellion  had  been 
subdued,  said,  in  a  ratification  speech  at 
Mobile  :  “  I  have  been  a  Democrat  all  my  life, 
before  the  war,  during  the  war,  and  since  the 
war,  and  fought  the  war  on  the  principles  of 
the  Democracy.  .  .  .  The  grand  old  Demo¬ 

cratic  party  has  arisen  from  its  long  slumber 
— and  the  election  of  Seymour  and  Blair  will 
reduce  the  negro  to  a  subordinate  position  as 
an  inferior  race.55  Percy  Walker  told  the  same 
Mobile  assemblage  that  this  is  the  first  time, 
since  Lee  tendered  to  the  enemy  that  sword 
which  “  flashed  victoriously  over  so  many 
battle-fields,  that  I  have  seen  a  light  on  the 
clouds  hanging  over  the  South  ; 55  for  “  the 
great  Democratic  party  has  taken  up  our 
cause.”  Robert  Toombs,  who  went  into  the 
rebellion  for  the  right  to  call  the  roll  of  his 
slaves  on  Bunker  Hill,  and  came  out  of  the 
rebellion  without  the  right  to  call  that  roll  on 
his  own  plantation,  vauntingly  proclaimed  to 
the  Democracy  of  Georgia,  gathered  in  mass 
convention  at  Atlanta,  that,  “as  the  late  war 
was  produced  by  the  defeated  Democratic 
party  in  560,  we  shall  never  have  peace  till  it 
is  restored  in  ’68.”  He  divines  the  mission  of 
the  party,  for  he  tells  the  delighted  Georgians 
that  “  the  grinning  skeletons  which  have  been 
set  up  in  our  midst  as  legislators  shall  be 
ousted  by  Frank  Blair,  whom  the  Democratic 
party  has  expressly  appointed  for  that  purpose. 
All  these  things  shall  be  swept  from  the 
bosom  of  the  country.”  Howell  Cobb,  denounc¬ 
ing  Governor  Brown,  the  loyal  white  men  of 
Georgia,  and  repentant  rebels  and  loyal  men, 
who  are  honestly  striving  to  secure  peace, 
order,  and  law,  as  traitors  to  the  country,  thus 
characterizes  and  counsels  concerning  them: 
“  You  owe  it  to  the  living,  you  owe  it  to  your 
own  children  and  to  their  children.  Write  down 
in  their  memories  this  day  and  all  days  and 
for  all  time  to  come  the  feeling  and  spirit  of 


13 


abhorrence  with  which  you  regard  and  estimate 
these  men.  O  Heaven  !  for  some  blistering 
words  that  I  may  write  infamy  upon  the  fore¬ 
head  of  these  men;  that  they  may  travel 
through  earth  despised  of  all  men  and  rejected 
of  heaven,  scorned  by  the  devil  himself.  They 
may  seek  their  final  congenial  resting-place 
under  the  mudsills  of  that  ancient  institution.” 
This  reconstructed  Democrat  is  the  same 
Howell  Cobb,  of  whom  Andrew  Johnson  said: 
“  Cobb  remained  in  the  Cabinet  until  the 
treasury  was  bankrupt  and  the  national  credit 
disgraced  at  home  and  abroad,  and  then  he 
conscientiously  seceded.” 

THE  KU-KLUX  DEMOCRACY. 

These  are  but  specimen  utterances  which 
unrepentant  and  Southern  Democratic  politi¬ 
cians  are  pouring  into  the  too  willing  ear  of 
the  people  of  the  South,  lately  in  rebellion 
against  their  country.  The  declaration  of 
General  Blair,  in  favor  of  trampling  in  the 
dust  the  Reconstruction  Acts,  instantly  aroused 
the  rebel  element  of  the  South  and  sent  the 
Ku-Klux  Klans  on  their  errands  of  insult,  out¬ 
rage  and  death.  No  wonder  that  the  rebel 
Gen.  Preston  hastened  to  nominate  the  author 
of  that  rebel-inspiring  letter  as  the  candidate 
for  the  Vice-Presidency  ;  no  wonder  that  Wade 
Hampton  leaped  to  the  floor  to  second  the 
nomination  ;  no  wonder  that  Fort  Pillow  For¬ 
rest,  who  now  declares  that,  in  a  certain  event, 
he  will  “  toot  his  horn”  for  the  rising  of  his 
“  old  troopers,”  and  who,  as  at  Fort  Pillow, 
will  “  give  no  quarter,”  announced  with  so 
much  unction  the  vote  of  Tennessee.  Blair’s 
disorganizing,  seditious,  and  revolutionary  let¬ 
ter  struck  a  responsive  chord  in  the  bosoms  of 
the  Southern  Democratic  leaders.  These  de¬ 
legates  assured  their  Northern  political  asso¬ 
ciates  that  they  could  carry  the  reconstructed 
States  for  the  greenback  and  grayback  ticket. 
The  bolder  of  the  rebel  leaders  hardly  disguise 
their  purpose  to  seize  the  polls  and  have  only 
the  white  vote  cast  and  counted.  Wade 
Hampton  called  on  his  Democratic  associates 
in  New-York  to  “  register  an  oath”  that  they 
would  place  Seymour  and  Blair  in  the  White 
House,  if  they  received  the  majority  of  white 
votes,  “  in  spite  of  all  the  bayonets  that  can 
be  brought  against  them.”  This  rebel  trooper 
and  Democratic  leader  tells  the  people  of  the 
South  “  not  to  employ  any  one,  white  or  black, 
who  gives  his  aid  to  the  Republican  party.” 
And  this  proposition  is  generally  approved 
and  applauded  by  Southern  politicians  and 
presses,  though  so  cruel  and  oppressive  to  the 
poor  laboring  men,  houseless  and  homeless, 
who  will  thus  be  compelled  to  exercise  the 
right  of  suffrage  under  duress,  and  with  the 
menace  constantly  before  them  of  being  driven 
from  their  humble  cabins  and  dispossessed 
even  of  the  fields  they  are  cultivating  on 
shares. 

A  RESULT  OF  REPUBLICAN  SUCCESS. 

I  need  dwell  but  briefly  on  what  the  Repub¬ 
lican  party  proposes  to  do.  Its  history,  its 
platform,  and  its  candidates  speak  to  the  full 
comprehension  of  the  American  people.  To 
that  history,  to  that  platform,  and  to  those  can¬ 


didates  it  points  with  confidence  and  pride. 
It  appeals,  as  ever,  to  the  higher  and  better 
sentiments  and  impulses  of  the  nation.  (Ap¬ 
plause.)  It  appeals  to  that  comprehensive 
patriotism,  which  embraces  the  whole  country 
and  the  people  of  the  whole  country,  to  that 
love  of  liberty  which  accords  equal  rights  to  all 
men,  to  that  sense  of  justice  that  gives  equal 
protection  to  the  poor  man’s  cabin  and  the  rich 
man’s  mansion,  and  to  that  humanity  that  lifts 
up  the  lowly  and  the  weak.  If  success  crowns 
its  efforts,  if  the  administration  shall  be  in¬ 
trusted  to  General  Grant,  with  a  House  of  Re¬ 
presentatives  to  sustain  that  administration, 
the  policy  of  reconstruction  will  be  perfected, 
the  States  will  all  be  speedily  restored  to  their 
practical  relations  to  the  general  government, 
equal  rights  will  be  assured  and  disabilities 
removed,  the  nation’s  faith  will  be  untarnished, 
its  currency  and  credit  improved,  and  “  Peace,” 
in  the  language  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  “  will  come 
to  stay.”  Then  the  blood,  poured  out  like 
autumnal  rains,  will  not  have  been  shed  in 
vain  ;  for  then  united  and  free  America,  with 
liberty  for  all  and  justice  to  all,  will  enter 
upon  a  career  of  development,  culture,  and 
progress,  that  shall  insure  a  “  future  grand 
and  great.”  (Loud  cheering.) 

THE  TRAITOROUS  DEMOCRACY. 

No  less  significant  and  no  less  pronounced 
are  the  history,  the  platform,  and  the  candi 
dates  of  the  Democratic  party.  Its  history 
recalls  no  inspiring  ideas,  no  beneficent  poli¬ 
cies,  no  ennobling  deeds  for  patriotism,  for 
liberty,  for  justice,  and  for  humanity.  But  it 
does  recall  images  of  slavery — its  shackles,  its 
whips,  its  unrequited  toils  and  its  all-pervading 
impurities — the  slave  power,  its  arrogant 
dominations  and  aggressive  demands,  ever 
associated  with  humiliating  concessions,  com¬ 
promises  and  apostasies  to  freedom ;  dark 
conspiracies,  lawless  rebellion,  fields  of  blood, 
taxation,  debts,  and  the  graves  of  the  nation’s 
dead.  Its  platform  speaks  of  the  Recon¬ 
struction,  Acts  as  “revolutionary,  unconsti¬ 
tutional,  and  void,” — beneficent  acts  by  which 
seven  disorganized  commonwealths  were  re¬ 
organized  on  the  basis  of  loyalty  and  lib¬ 
erty,  and  restored  to  representation  in  Con¬ 
gress  and  to  the  blessings  and  benefits  of 
the  Union.  Its  candidates  are  pledged  to 
“  trample  in  the  dust  those  reorganized  and 
restored  commonwealths,  their  constitutions 
and  laws,  by  which  equal  rights  and  privileges 
are  accorded  and  secured  to  all.  Those  can¬ 
didates  are  also  pledged  for  that  unconstitu¬ 
tional,  un-American,  and  wicked  monstrosity, 
so  alien  in  spirit  and  tone  to  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  and  the  utterances  of  the 
fathers,  “  a  White  Man’s  Government ,”  in  place 
of  the  constitutional  and  American  idea — a 
government  “  of  all,  by  all,  for  all.”  This  re¬ 
cord  of  fourteen  years,  this  platform,  and  these 
candidates,  the  wild,  revolutionary,  and  disor¬ 
ganizing  utterances  of  Blair,  Toombs,  Cobb, 
and  other  Southern  Democratic  leaders,  speak, 
in  language  not  to  be  misunderstood  by  the 
country,  the  purposes  of  the  Democratic  party, 
and  wnAT  it  proposes  to  do.  The  currency 
is  to  be  farther  depreciated  ;  the  public  faith 


14 


broken,  and  the  national  honor  tainted ;  State 
constitutions  are  to  he  abrogated ;  the  civil 
rights  of  millions  impaired  ;  the  right  to  vote, 
now  a  possession,  taken  from  three  fourths  of 
a  million  of  working-men ;  the  education  of 
the  people,  so  longed  for  by  the  poor  of  both 
races,  is  to  be  postponed ;  hatreds,  insults,  and 
outrages  to  the  loyal  are  to  be  intensified  ; 
the  soldier,  who  fought  for  the  restoration  of 
the  seceding  States,  and  who  now  hopes,  by 
his  skilled  industry,  to  make  the  war-wasted 
fields  of  the  South  bloom  once  more,  is  to  be 
forced  to  leave  his  new  home,  and  the  malig¬ 
nant  spirit  of  slavery  and  caste  is  to  rule 
again.  Then  this  murderous  advice  of  Albert 
Pike,  the  friend  and  champion  of  Blair  and 
Seymour,  addressed  to  the  young  men  of  Mis¬ 
sissippi,  may  be  accepted  and  followed  to 
“  the  bitter  end 

“  Young  men,  it  is  for  you  to  bring  back  to 
the  country  its  golden  days.  The  South  is  our 
land.  The  North  is  a  foreign  and  hostile 
realm.  Stand  at  the  altar  of  your  country. 
Swear  eternal  hatred  to  its  oppressors.  Swear 
that  the  day  shall  come  when  the  Susquehan¬ 


na  and  Ohio  shall  he  like  rivers  of  fire,  as 
they  are  now  rivers  of  blood,  between  your 
native  land  and  that  of  the  northern  Huns, 
which  no  man  shall  attempt  to  cross  and 
live.” 

CONCLUSION. 

With  one  or  the  other  of  these  two  great 
parties,  fellow-citizens,  you  are  constrained  to 
act  in  the  coming  election  of  a  President  of  the 
United  States.  Consider  well,  I  pray  you,  the 
histories,  the  platforms,  and  candidates  of  these 
parties  now  asking  your  suffrages.  Remember 
that  by  its  fruits  the  tree  is  known,  and  by  his 
deeds  man  is  judged.  Apply  to  these  political 
organizations  those  words  of  Holy  Writ.  Test 
them  by  the  high  standards  of  love  of  country 
and  love  of  man,  and  vote  as  they  prompt  and 
approve.  So  voting,  you  shall  do  something 
to  heal  the  wounds  of  war,  rebuke  and  repress 
lawlessness  and  violence,  develop  the  material 
and  moral  forces  of  the  land,  secure  equality 
of  rights  and  privileges,  and  thus  lift  our 
country  to  its  predestined  rank  among  th« 
nations.  (Long-continued  cheering.) 


Uc 


PLATFORM 


OF  THE 


REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 


❖ 


The  following  Platform,  reported  by  the 
Committee  on  Resolutions,  was  unanimously 
adopted  by  the  National  Republican  Conven¬ 
tion  at  Chicago : 


First.  We  congratulate  the  country  on  the 
assured  success  of  the  reconstruction  policy  of 
Congre  s,  as  evinced  by  the  adoption,  in  a  ma¬ 
jority  of  the  States  lately  in  rebellion,  of  con¬ 
stitutions  securing  equal  civil  and  political 
rights  to  all,  and  regard  it  as  the  duty  of  the 
Government  to  sustain  those  constitutions,  and 
to  prevent  the  people  of  such  States  from  be¬ 
ing  remitted  to  a  state  of  anarchy  or  military 


rule. 

Second.  The  guarantee  by  Congress  of  equal 
suffrage  to  all  loyal  men  at  the  South  was  de¬ 
manded  by  every  consideration  of  public  safe¬ 
ty,  ot  gratitude,  and  of  justice,  and  must  be 
maintained  ;  while  the  question  of  suffrage  in 
all  the  loyal  States  properly  belongs  to  the 
people  or  those  States. 

Third.  We  denounce  all  forms  of  repudia¬ 
tion  as  a  national  crime,  and  national  honor 
requires  the  payment  of  the  public  indebted¬ 
ness  in  the  utmost  good  faith  to  all  creditors 
at  home  ana  abroad  not  only  according  to  the 
letter,  out  the  spirit  of  the  laws  under  which 
it  was  contracted. 

Fourth.  It  is  due  to  the  labor  of  the  nation 
that  taxation  should  be  equalized  and  reduced 
as  rapidly  as  the  national  faith  will  permit. 

Fifth.  The  national  debt,  contracted  as  it 
1ms  been  for  the  preservation  of  the  Union  for 
all  time  to  come,  should  be  extended  over  a 


fair  period  for  redemption  ;  and  it  is  the  duty 
of  Congress  to  reduce  the  rate  of  interest 
thereon,  whenever  it  can  honestly  be  done. 

Sixth.  That  the  best  policy  to  diminish  our 
burden  of  debt  is  to  so  improve  our  credit  that 
capitalists  will  seek  to  loan  us  money  at  lower 
rates  of  interest  than  we  now  pay,  and  must 
continue  to  pay  so  long  as  repudiation,  partial 
or  total,  open  or  covert,  is  threatened  or  sus¬ 
pected. 

Seventh.  The  Government  of  the  United 
States  should  be  administered  with  the  strict¬ 
est  economy ;  and  the  corruptions  which  have 
been  so  shamefully  nursed  and  fostered  by  An¬ 
drew  Johnson  call  loudly  for  radical  reform. 

Eighth.  We  profoundly  deplore  the  untime¬ 
ly  and  tragic  death  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  and 
regret  the  accession  of  Andrew  Johnson  to  the 
Presidency,  who  has  acted  treacherously  to  the 
people  who  elected  him  and  the  cause  he  was 
pledged  to  support ;  has  usurped  high  legisla¬ 
tive  and  judicial  functions  ;  has  refused  to  exe¬ 
cute  the  laws ;  has  used  his  high  office  to  induce 
other  officers  to  ignore  and  violate  the  laws : 
has  employed  his  executive  powers  to  render 
insecure  the  property,  peace,  liberty,  and  life 
of  the  citizen ;  has  abused  the  pardoning 
power ;  has  denounced  the  National  Legisla¬ 
ture  as  unconstitutional ;  has  persistently  and 
corruptly  resisted,  by  every  means  in  his 
power,  every  proper  attempt  at  the  reconstruc¬ 
tion  of  the  States  lately  in  rebellion  ;  has  per¬ 
verted  the  public  patronage  into  an  engine  of 
wholesale  corruption,  and  has  been  justly  im¬ 
peached  for  high  crimes  and  misdemeanors, 


16 


and  properly  pronounced  guilty  thereof  by 
the  votes  of  thirty-five  Senators. 

Ninth.  The  doctrine  of  Great  Britain  and 
other  European  powers,  that  because  a  man  is 
once  a  subject  he  is  always  so,  must  be  resisted 
at  every  hazard  by  the  United  States  as  a  relic 
of  the  feudal  times  not  authorized  by  the  law 
of  nations  and  at  war  with  our  national  honor 
and  independence.  Naturalized  citizens  are 
entitled  to  be  protected  in  all  their  rights  of 
citizenship  as  though  they  were  native  born, 
and  no  citizen  of  the  United  States,  native  or 
naturalized,  must  be  liable  to  arrest  and  im¬ 
prisonment  by  any  foreign  power  for  acts  done 
or  words  spoken  in  this  country.  And  if  so 
arrested  and  imprisoned,  it  is  the  duty  of  the 
Government  co  interfere  in  his  behalf. 

Tenth.  Of  all  who  were  faithful  in  the  trials 
of  the  late  war,  there  were  none  entitled  to 
more  especial  honor  than  the  brave  soldiers 
and  seamen  who  endured  the  hardships  of 
campaign  and  cruize,  and  imperiled  their 
lives  in  the  service  of  the  country.  The  boun¬ 
ties  and  pensions  provided  by  lawr  for  these 
brave  defenders  of  the  nation  are  obligations 
never  to  be  forgotten.  The  widows  and  or¬ 
phans  of  the  gallant  dead  are  the  wards  of  the 
people,  a  sacred  legacy  bequeathed  to  the  na¬ 
tion’s  protecting  care. 

Eleventh.  Foreign  emigration,  which  in  the 
past  has  added  so  much  to  the  wealth,  develop¬ 


ment  of  resources,  and  increase  of  power  of 
this  nation,  “  the  asylum  of  the  oppressed  of  all 
nations,”  should  be  fostered  and  encouraged  by 
a  liberal  and  just  policy. 

Twelfth.  This  Convention  declares  its  sym¬ 
pathy  with  all  the  oppressed  peoples  who  are 
struggling  for  their  rights. 

On  motion  of  General  Carl  Schurz,  the  fol¬ 
lowing  additional  resolutions  were  unanimous¬ 
ly  adopted  as  part  of  the  platform  : 

Resolved,  That  we  highly  commend  the  spirit 
of  magnanimity  and  forbearance  with  which 
the  men  who  have  served  in  the  rebellion,  but 
now  frankly  and  honestly  cooperate  with  us  in 
restoring  the  peace  of  the  country  and  recon 
structing  the  Southern  State  governments 
upon  the  basis  of  impartial  justice  and  equal 
rights,  are  received  back  into  the  communion 
of  the  loyal  people ;  and  we  favor  the  removal 
of  the  disqualifications  and  restrictions  im¬ 
posed  upon  the  late  rebels  in  the  same  measure 
as  the  spirit  of  disloyalty  wfill  die  out,  and  as 
may  be  consistent  with  the  safety  of  the  loyal 
people. 

Resolved,  That  we  recognize  the  great  prin¬ 
ciples  laid  down  in  the  immortal  Declaration 
of  Independence  as  the  true  foundation  of  de¬ 
mocratic  government,  and  we  hail  with  glad¬ 
ness  every  effort  toward  making  these  prim 
ciples  a  living  reality  on  every  inch  of  Ameri¬ 
can  soil. 


